A Different Kind of Shotgun Wedding
On snafus (and Clarence Thomas)
Did you know the term “shotgun wedding” comes from the image of a pregnant bride’s father holding a shotgun to the groom, forcing him to marry his daughter?
Katelyn and I had our own shotgun wedding this month. Neither of us were pregnant, but as the previous administration came back, feeling more powerful than ever, we felt the chilling presence of a barrel over our shoulders and through our windows. As queer people, we are facing the fear that our marriages may not be legal soon.
This post is not entirely doom and gloom, although I do have a little information on the doomy and gloomy parts if you are curious why we fear that our marriage is at risk. But even as I write this post, as a thunderstorm descends on the neighborhood and the sky turns periwinkle, I remind myself that our tomatoes and pumpkins and peppers will only grow stronger in the rain.
A shotgun wedding is still a wedding, and by golly, our wedding was a hoot and a half. Even if we had about four snafus along the way. (More on that in the fun part of the post later.)
Why Do We Think Our Marriage Is At Risk?
(If you believe me when I say the GOP is coming for gay marriage, you can skip this part.)
Katelyn and I got engaged in November, and we plan to have an “anniversary party” (to avoid the upcharges) in November 2026. That gives us a lot of time to plan (I’ve got a dang book coming out this year, after all!) but also a lot of time for gay marriage to be overturned.
Obviously, right now, same-sex marriage is legal. In 2015, the Supreme Court decided in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to get married. Yay!
We’re all good, right? Just like Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in all the states, right?Because Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges hinged on the due process clause, which states that the government can’t deprive someone of fundamental rights like life, liberty, or property without following fair and legal procedures.
Well, we’re not all good! We all know what happened to Roe v. Wade!
In 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, Justice Clarence Thomas shared some thoughts on how this affected similar cases:
…In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 7), we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents…
So Thomas wants to reconsider the decision that legalized same-sex marriage throughout the country. Justice Alito has also brought up the case in 2020, complaining that the poor bigots who believe that gay people should not be allowed to get married are at risk of being called bigots.
These aren’t just rumors or speculations…these are written opinions.
That, to me, is quite scary.
No case that directly threatened Obergefell was coming down the pike when we decided to get married, but that didn’t stop random states from writing pointless petitions asking the Supreme Court, “Could you pretty please reverse your decision on marriage equality? We don’t like fun and happiness.” At the time that Katelyn and I were thinking about doing a shotgun wedding, North Dakota and Idaho had passed these resolutions, using taxpayer dollars to do essentially nothing but say, “We’re fighting against gay marriage.” At the time of this writing, Oklahoma is working on passing their own version of that resolution.
That, to me, is also quite scary, although less scary, because it’s hopefully a waste of time.
And what happens if OvH is overturned? Like abortion, same-sex marriage laws will be in the hands of the states. Texas’s GOP Platform says that homosexuality is an “abnormal lifestyle choice” and they “affirm God’s biblical design for marriage and family between one biological man and one biological woman, which has proven to be the foundation for all great nations in Western Civilization…[they] oppose homosexual marriage, regardless of state of origin.”
So, well, you know.
All in all, it’s a small chance that the Supreme Court will do anything related to Obergefell this year, but they have one more term before our “wedding day” in November 2026. It’s a gamble…and I only like to gamble in Vegas. (Roulette is my game. Katelyn hates when I bet more than $3 at a time.) So in February, Katelyn and I gave ourselves a deadline: we should probably get married before June, when the Supreme Court term ends, to protect ourselves.
Fortunately, now that Katelyn and I are married, if OvH is overturned, our marriage would have to be recognized and “grandfathered in” thanks to the Respect for Marriage Act. Thanks, Biden!
Less scary! But still scary.
Back to Joy!
In my backpacking days, I learned to carve out room for three snafus. I didn’t plan for what these snafus would be, but I mentally prepared for three to come along. This helped when, two days into my stay in Thailand, I left my debit card in the ATM and had to rely on Venmo for quite a lot of the trip. I didn’t panic like I did when all of my stuff was stolen in Europe two years prior. I just breathed in, breathed out, and said, “Two more left.”
I recommend adopting this mindset for any trip, any big event, any wedding. Because our wedding, despite it being a quick courthouse ceremony for 20 people, had its fair share of snafus.
We had a fall at the Airbnb and had to call EMS. (Everyone is fine.) We had a gas leak at a Marriott. Katelyn’s uncle’s tire blew out on the way to the courthouse and my parents’ and friend’s flight was delayed.
The snafu cherry on the snafu sundae was the courthouse’s elevator being broken. Not all of our guests could get up the stairs. The judge was overly apologetic about this snafu, telling us that her 74-year-old mother was also upset about the elevator. (Wait…do judges actually live at the courthouse? Can someone answer this for me?)
I’m sure there’s a Bridezilla out there who would have cared about this, but Katelyn and I preferred to use our Bridezilla time to do silly T-Rex arms and fake roar in front of our friends while we drank wine. When the judge asked if we wanted to do the ceremony in the hallway, we said yes.
All 20 of us found a spot in the air conditioned, narrow space to hold the ceremony. (Remember…we’re in Texas. The high hit three digits before we could finish lunch.)
I could have gotten married in a coal mine. I wouldn’t have noticed. I could have gotten married at a truck stop or a pet food store or a YMCA. I wouldn’t have noticed. Because when the judge read our vows, I didn’t see the tiles in the hallway. I didn’t hear the automatic door slide open. All I saw was Katelyn. All I saw was forever.
I hope to spend forever laughing over snafus and doing silly T-Rex arms with Katelyn. We’ve already been to Colombia, Costa Rica, and national parks throughout the US. We’ve been to hell and back as we mourned Binx and dealt with COVID. We chose to marry each other because we fight against any conflict as a team rather than fighting against each other.
Even in the face of small snafus (again, everyone was okay), we were able to look at each other and celebrate our love. Snafus look small in the face of a society that doesn’t always accept you for who you are. And snafus look small in the face of forever.
No one can take our forever away from us, because we are who we are, and we’re very proud of it.
