"ANNIVERSARY WEEK"

 “ANNIVERSARY WEEK”

This week marks many anniversaries, the most important of which (to me anyway) is Caroline and my 48th wedding anniversary on Wednesday.  We were married on a hot Saturday afternoon in Ed Loring’s backyard, with he and Caroline’s mentor Sandy Winter officiating.  We had dated for about 6 months, before we decided to get married.  In our courtship, I took Caroline to the Atlanta Braves game on a cool April evening, and it was the night that Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.   

       Looking back on it , we created several waves and continued to so throughout our marriage.  When we applied for a marriage license in Dekalb County in March, 1974,  the clerk was hesitant to give us a license because neither one of us was planning to change our names when we got married.   The clerk seemed unconcerned that I was keeping my name, but she was very concerned that Caroline was keeping her name and not taking mine.  The clerk indicated that Georgia law required that Caroline change her name, and while we were pretty sure that such a law did not exist, we said that we would check it out and be back later.  Sure enough, the woman attorney we consulted scoffed and bristled at the clerk’s reaction, telling us to return and threaten a lawsuit if we were not given a marriage license.  When we returned, we engaged another clerk who did not have the same issues, and we sailed right through.

Caroline’s mom wanted her to get married in Central Church in Chattanooga, the family church where Caroline had grown up.  The Session of Central in 1972 had refused to consider Caroline’s request to be taken under care of the Session so that she could begin the process of becoming an ordained minister.  Had Caroline lived such an immoral life that she was unworthy of consideration as a minister?  No, they all agreed that she was a genuine child of the church – their issue was her gender identity:  female.  They did not believe that God could possibly call women into the ministry.  Fortunately, another Central Presbyterian Church, this one in Atlanta under Reverend Randy Taylor’s  leadership, welcomed Caroline, and she was ordained as a pastor in 1973, the 21st woman to be ordained in the former PCUS.  

    Needless to say, we were not interested in getting married in Central church in Chattanooga, and my home church in Helena, Arkansas, was far away, so we chose an outdoor wedding in Decatur, the reception being a covered dish supper, with wedding guests bringing the food.  Several of the younger people there at our wedding later told us that our wedding inspired them, and when they got married, they chose a similar “hippie” wedding.  It worked for us – not much money spent ($400 was the cost, with $200 of that for beer that a friend of ours bought for us), friends from many places and stages of our lives attending, no formal rules to follow, and the celebration lasted from the 11 AM gathering time to well into the night.  And, yes, by the time of our wedding, Caroline was already Reverend Leach, so I got married to a minister!

It has been a great trip, with bumps and struggles along the way,  but so many milestones and achievements and celebrations!  We were the first clergy couple in the former Southern Presbyterian Church, taking a church together in Norfolk (splitting one salary) and developing a mission to people in a low-income area that included many Navy families.  We applied for the Presbyterian Women Birthday Offering, and the church received it in 1978, enabling St. Columba Ministries to be established, a ministry that continues today.  We later revived Oakhurst Presbyterian Church and helped to make it a nationally known multi-racial, welcoming inclusive church in Decatur.  Having ordained a gay elder in 1978, we also moved those boundaries, which still are controversial today, depending on SCOTUS, of course.  And, our two proudest achievements are our great children David and Susan, who have continued the vision of justice and equity and welcoming that have marked our marriage.

This week also brings other anniversaries, much more famous than our anniversary, and I will explore them in other blogs.  When we got married on May 18, we did not realize that it was also the anniversary of the terrible SCOTUS decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, declaring that “separate but equal” was the law of the land.  Fortunately, SCOTUS redeemed itself in 1954 Brown v. Board decision of May 17, 1954.  The date of May 14 also marks two terrible events:  the landing of Anglo colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and the removal of Palestinian people from their native lands by Israel in 1948 in the “Nakba.”  More on those later, but for now, I give thanks for Caroline Leach being in my life – minister, wife, partner, mother (of many, including two biologicals), and wise adviser.