Ask the Expert: Should I invite anti-gay relatives to my wedding?

Stumped on when to send out your STDs (save-the-date announcements)? Don’t know who should be invited to your rehearsal dinner? Get the answers to all your wedding etiquette questions by submitting your dilemma to etiquette@equallywed.com [1]  
 

I have relatives who have made it clear they’re uncomfortable with me being gay. But I’m still unsure if I should invite them to my wedding. Am I being the bigger person if I send an invite? I don’t want to get my feelings hurt.  

 Unfortunately, being related to someone doesn’t guarantee fair treatment of gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people. And as sad as that is, we’re probably all used to it on some level or another and are constantly working to heal those wounds.

Your wedding is your day to celebrate your love and commitment to each other with your family and friends—the ones who love you and believe in your love. So why would you want to invite anyone who wouldn’t allow themselves to feel the love?

 If you want to reach out to them to see how they’d feel or behave at your wedding, give them a call and talk to them about your feelings and hesitation. And if that’s a bit much for your taste, send them a wedding announcement after the big day.

It requires no response, but lets them know you’ve taken the leap with your—gasp—gay lover. 

Kirsten Palladino is Editor in Chief of Equally Wed, the nation’s premier same-sex wedding magazine, online at www.equallywed.com [2]. Equally Wed offers gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples an extensive, trustworthy and fashionable guide of inspiration, ideas and trends for planning their engagements, weddings and honeymoons, as well as their happily ever after. The photo-rich site is home to Equally Wed’s Local Resources, a veritable marketplace of vetted GLBT-friendly wedding vendors across the United States and abroad. It also offers an interactive social community to talk to other readers about all things wedding, as well as the latest news from the frontlines of the fight for marriage equality

[1] http://www.365gay.commailto:etiquette@equallywed.com
[2] http://www.equallywed.com/

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Writer E. Lynn Harris is dead

E. Lynn Harris, the African-American, openly gay author, died while on a West Coast book tour. He was 54.

He was on tour for his most recent book, Basketball Jones, about the gay lover of an NBA star.

Harris grew up in Little Rock and attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, …

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Will John Travolta Renounce The Church Of Scientology?

There’s a rumor going around that one of Scientology’s most powerful proponents, John Travolta, is looking to leave the draconian religion once and for all. After the year he’s had, it would make sense.

According to the Daily Mail – who rounded up some interesting quotes on the matter – it appears to be a very real possibility. To say Travolta’s had a rough go of it recently would be putting it very, very lightly.

On the business side of things, Travolta’s big role this year performed under studio expectations. An complete aside, when you consider his personal life:

His son Jett – reportedly autistic, a diagnosis the Church of Scientology refuses to dignify – passed away earlier this year. Travolta defied Scientology and acknowledged it. Some sleazy gossip website put together a theory that enlists the idea of Travolta not only having a gay lover, but the gay lover – his son’s nanny – being a primary cause of his son’s death. Which is besides the fact that someone tried to extort him over documents involved in his son’s transportation, and his wife might’ve tried (successfully) to get Roger Friedman fired by going to the top brass at Fox over Friedman’s comments on Scientology.

See Will John Travolta Renounce The Church Of Scientology?

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Gay incident reopens Salt Lake City’s Main Street plaza wounds

It’s the wound that won’t heal. The rift that won’t close. And earlier this month, two gay lovers’ purportedly innocuous late-night kiss — though LDS Church officials insist it was far more amorous than that — ripped it wide open.

Utah’s simmering religious divide boiled over — once again — at the geographical and philosophical intersection of church and state: the Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City.

“It is a scab that will continue to be peeled away — and may never heal,” says Dani Eyer, the former ACLU director who fought to preserve First Amendment rights on the plaza.

Matt Aune and Derek Jones say they held hands, kissed and then squabbled with security guards on the LDS Church-owned square. Salt Lake City police issued a ticket for trespassing. In protest, supporters of the couple staged a “kiss-in” last Sunday outside the plaza and plan another such demonstration today.

The LDS Church — a faith to which 60 percent of Utahns belong — defended its right to regulate “inappropriate behavior” on the plaza.

“What we’re seeing now is a manifestation of what should have been obvious from the very beginning,” says former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. “This block of Main Street never should have been conveyed to the LDS Church. It was a recipe for ongoing resentments between the LDS Church and those who are not members.”

The church bought the strip of Main — from North Temple to South Temple — in 1999 after then-Mayor Deedee Corradini and the City Council, with the only two non-LDS members dissenting, signed off on the $8.1 million deal. But the controversy burned for five more years as federal courts were asked to settle the prickly issue of whether the church could govern expression on the plaza and whether the city could retain a public right of way (as outlined in the original deal).

“It was meant to be for everybody,” Eyer says. “Where people come and go their constitutional rights go with them.”

After a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2002, First Amendment activities returned to the plaza. But demonstrations by anti-Mormon protesters — including cries of “whore” and “harlot” hurled at newlywed brides — “sustained divisions” that “reached to the point of hatred” between Mormons and non-Mormons, Anderson says.

In the end, he agreed to trade the public easement for cash and LDS land to build a west-side community center.

See Gay incident reopens Salt Lake City’s Main Street plaza wounds Salt Lake Tribune -

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Author E. Lynn Harris dies at age 54

The openly gay, best-selling author E. Lynn Harris died earlier this morning while on a book tour along the West Coast. The tour was in promotion of his eleventh novel, “Basketball Jones“, the story of a player in the NBA and his gay lover. While the cause of death is still unknown, his personal assistant did say that the Harris’s health had recently declined. Further questions, however, went unanswered. The celebrated author, known best for his books centered on life as a gay, black man, was 54 at the time of his death.

Born in Flint, Michigan, E. Lynn Harris moved around a lot, finally finding his home and settling down in the South. As a student at the University of Arkansas, he become the school’s first male cheerleader and was, till his dying breath, a giant Razorbacks fan. Later in life, Harris returned as a visiting professor in the school’s English department.

 

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James Franco Surprised By Sean Penn Gay Love Scene In ‘Milk’

James Franco’s kiss with Sean Penn in Harvey Milk biopic Milk left him feeling uncomfortable – because his co-star wanted to act out a full-on love scene.

Franco, who plays San Francisco

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politician Milk’s gay lover Scott Smith in the Gus Van Sant film, knew he’d have to pucker-up with Penn – but was shocked when the director told him the Colors actor wanted to take it further.

 See James Franco Surprised By Sean Penn Gay Love Scene In ‘Milk’
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