West Point chapel hosts its 1st same-sex wedding
Brides Penelope Gnesin, seated, and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, hold hands during their wedding, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. New York legalized same-sex marriage last year, just months before President Barack Obama lifted the policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military. / AP Photo/Amanda Fulton
Updated 7:05 PM ET
WEST POINT, N.Y. Cadet Chapel, the landmark Gothic church that is a center for spiritual life at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, hosted its first same-sex wedding Saturday.
Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, exchanged vows in the regal church in an afternoon ceremony, attended by about 250 guests and conducted by a senior Army chaplain.
The two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment ceremony that didn't carry any legal force in 1999 and had long hoped to formally tie the knot. The way was cleared last year, when New York legalized same-sex marriage and President Barack Obama lifted the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military.
The brides both live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn't allow gay marriage.
"We just couldn't wait any longer," Fulton told The Associated Press in a phone interview Saturday.
Cadet Chapel was a more-than-adequate second choice, she said.
"It has a tremendous history, and it is beautiful. That's where I first heard and said the cadet prayer," Fulton said, referring to the invocation that says, "Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won."
The ceremony was the second same-sex wedding at West Point. Last weekend, two of Fulton's friends, a young lieutenant and her partner, were married in another campus landmark, the small Old Cadet Chapel in West Point's cemetery.
Fulton has campaigned against the ban on gays in the military as a member of two groups representing gay and lesbian servicemen and servicewomen. She graduated from West Point in 1980, a member of the first class to include women.
She served with the Army Signal Corps in Germany and rose to the rank of captain, but left the service in 1986 partly because she wanted to be open about her sexual orientation. Obama appointed her last year to the U.S. Military Academy's Board of Visitors.
Fulton said the only hassle involved in arranging her ceremony came when she was initially told that none of West Point's chaplains was authorized by his or her denomination to perform same-sex weddings.
Luckily, Fulton said, they were able to call on a friend, Army Chaplain Col. J. Wesley Smith. He is the senior Army chaplain at Dover Air Force Base, where he presides over the solemn ceremonies held when the bodies of soldiers killed in action overseas return to U.S. soil.
The couple added other military trappings to their wedding, including a tradition called the saber arch, where officers or cadets hold their swords aloft over the newlyweds as they emerge from the church.
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Humans have for thousands of years put up on a pedestal the idea and belief that people are a civilized animal. We chose to be more sophisticated and to have a superior culture than other species of animals. Sexual behavior was and still is an important way we distinguish the human animal from other animals. Sex acts that lower species take for granted without forethought and moral reflection include homosexuality, polygamy, incest, molestation, rape, sodomy, oral, masturbation, sadism, bondage and slavery, and killing and cannibalism of mates and spawns and many more that experts on sexual behavior study.
Granted the human animal is just that, an animal and we have the same desires other species have. However we use discipline, will power, and mental self-control to suppress negative sexual behavior. When the offense is rape, murder, incest and a few others there is a necessity to punish those that didn't have the discipline to refuse the sexual desire. Conversely we ignore some negative sex acts because they are between consenting adults and generally harm only those who consent.
However we still harbor ideals to take the human animal to heights of civilized behavior, and the quest doesn't rely on any religion. Globally we recognize that monogamy is the only sex act that is fashioned solely for the expansion of family. It is the only sexual behavior that is a normal and acceptable civil right. We don't desire that bondage and discipline become a normal act so that women and men appear in public with their spouse on a leash and handcuffed, whipped and beaten for all to see, yet it is between two consenting adults. So it is allowed in the privacy of one's home as is sodomy, homosexuality, masturbation, and oral sex.
Declaring any negative sexual behavior as a civil right will inadvertently allow it to serve up the concept of being normal behavior for all people. In fact homosexuality or sadism, etc. declared as a civil right will cast misgiving on those that don't contribute to that way of life. If homosexuality is normal behavior then those who are not gay are abnormal! There is only one choice and that is gay marriage must be stopped. Gay civil rights is a travesty of immense proportions, don't let it happen. Being against gay marriage doesn't mean we are against allowing homosexuals to live in peace and harmony. Please don't elevate the sexual behavior of lower animals as something to emulate.
Some homosexuals are claiming their behavior is a variation in nature. Humans that have different skin color and body shapes are demonstrating a variation but sexual behavior isn't one. The logic is proved false by recognizing that other sexual behaviors would also be natural variations, rape, incest, slavery, molestation, polygamy , etc., etc., and homosexuality are all crimes against the nature of man and like real crimes should be recognized as harmful for the people.
Abortion and Obamacare are examples of laws passed either through Congress or the Supreme Court that was not the desire of the majority of the American people. Prior to Row vs. Wade, abortion was illegal in 30 states and only legal on request in 3 states.
In my opinion, issues as controversial as Homosexuality, Abortion and Obamacare should be given to the states to work out. That is where votes count in a Democracy. And as someone retired from the military, I vehemently oppose the military being used as a laboratory to enhance social agenda. I have a neutral opinion concerning homosexuality and believe it will eventually be tolerated by the majority but until then don't shove it down our collective throats, pun not intended.
Another use of Oligarchy is the Senate Minority Republican's massive misuse of the filibuster. I disagree with many laws the Democrat Congress proposes but the Senate minority should not be able to hold the majority hostage.
Bottom line, the majority rules in a Democracy and that process is being abused.
I have do doubt there are dissenting opinion to my examples but that is how I see it.
At stake is the concept of human dignity, which is based on things such as the ability to think for ourselves and make decisions for ourselves. We must be allowed that personal freedom to make decisions which give meaning to our lives such as whether to marry or not, to have children or not, or to involve ourselves with some sort of religion or not. Unwarranted interference in these matters results in the decimation of one's autonomy and dignity. That is not an outcome that you would wish for yourself. Homosexuality and abortion are issues that simply should not be mandated, due to their deeply personal nature and the obvious impact that they have on other people's human dignity. You say that you have a neutral opinion of homosexuality, yet in the same sentence declare that you do not wish to be tolerant of it. Your "pun not intended" is in fact the only thing that corrupts the preceding clause into a pun at all -- a lurid one at that.
As far as not shoving it down someone's throat goes, that seems like an outstanding policy that you and other bigoted people should adopt immediately.
Sad day.
There it is! Gayatheist admits Liberals are warmongers!!!
If NJ does not recognize gay marriage would their marriage still be considered valid if they remain in NJ? What about state government issues, inheritance, spouse medical decisions, pensions, survivor benefits...?
There was an article some time back asbout a couple that had gotten married in a pro-gay marriage state that wanted to get a divorce in a anti-gay marriage state. The state did not recognize the couple as married. Would this be the same situation for this couple?