Support Among Catholics for Same-sex Couples

From a recent PRRI press release:

“New research by the Public Religion Research Institute has found that American Catholics are in fact more supportive than any other Christian tradition when it comes to favoring legal recognition for same-sex couples, and while there's still some division over whether that recognition should be civil marriage (43%) or civil unions (31%), only 22% are categorically opposed to any form of recognition. This is just one among many findings that show Catholics favor gay rights much more than perhaps thought.”

I am a trained Life-Cycle Celebrant and Wedding Officiant. I perform wedding and commitment ceremonies for couples who are committed to loving each other. And I am also a person whose spiritual family of origin is the Roman Catholic Church. Until reading the results of this research, I thought my support of same-sex couples put me in a minority among American Catholics. Apparently, I am not in the minority. And I couldn’t be more pleased!

Wedding Makes A Splash

The other day a friend sent me a link to a video of a wedding ceremony in which the best man tripped as he was stepping forward to deliver the rings. It happened at that wonderful, tender moment, just after the bride and groom have exchanged marriage vows, and just before they offered their rings to one another. Not only did the trip and fall look painful for the best man, he took out the bride and the officiant on his way down. To make things worse, they were standing on what looked like small concrete platforms over a pool of water, much like you might find here in the Missouri Botanical Gardens. So not only did the bride and the officiant go down, but they fell backwards into the water. Yikes! Talk about an awkward moment...

Note to self: Never perform ceremonies standing with my back to water.