The Member Of The Wedding

Ka-ching! Boro get$ ready for gay marriage

Now that gays can get married, the only color of the pride rainbow is green.

A mere 48 hours after the state legalized gay marriage, gay-friendly businesses and ministers started scrambling to offer wedding discounts to the first same-sex couples to tie the knot in Brooklyn this summer.

Greenpoint Reformed Church’s Rev. Ann Kansfield has vowed to officiate the borough’s first gay marriage — and she’s offering to hold the reception at her Milton Street church.

“Of course, we’d be more than happy to have small wedding parties in our social hall, which looks really pretty when it’s all decorated,” said Kansfield.

So far, Kansfield has booked two weddings, one for Labor Day weekend and one in October — but she’s still hoping to schedule a ceremony on July 24, the first day that the state officially recognizes same-sex marriage.

But she’s got a lot of competition.

Greenpoint ministers John Merz at Church of the Ascension and Griffin Thomas of Lutheran Church of the Messiah are open to officiating gay marriage ceremonies, as are All Souls Bethlehem Church Reverend Tom Martinez in Ditmas Park and Park Slope’s Rev. Cheri Kroon said she would be “willing to travel anywhere in Brooklyn” to officiate a gay marriage.

And don’t think we’re forgetting about the Jews.

If you’re a same-sex member of the tribe, Park Slope Rabbis Andy Bachman of Beth Elohim and Ellen Lippman of Kolot Chayeinu are looking forward to performing the gayest Jewish wedding since Will and Grace went off the air.

And Lippman, who has officiated at dozens of lesbian and gay Jewish weddings, is even planning her own ceremony for her and her partner later this summer.

“I am grinning non-stop and waiting for the end of July when the law will take effect,” Lippman wrote on her Facebook page. “What the new law gives us is the chance to marry civilly, to get a marriage license and the various rights it conveys.”

But religious leaders aren’t the only ones popping the champagne now that the law was changed.

Brooklyn’s restaurants, hotels, caterers and floral shops should be cashing in with the wave of weddings that will be thrown together in the next few months.

State officials estimate that legalized gay marriage could bring in a $391 million windfall, as 21,000 couples are expected to wed in New York this year, in addition to the 45,000 people from less-tolerant neighboring states, such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where gay marriage isn’t legal.

post-teen trauma: Paperback Love: The Member of the Wedding

So I re-read Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding last week and found myself marking it up with multicoloured fine-liners as every page had something that sighed and hummed and stirred. It's one of those sweet ache books. Frankie, 12, rejected by the neighborhood girls, spends her afternoons in the kitchen with Berenice and John Henry talking herself into being and then not knowing what to do when she gets there. Frankie (aka F. Jasmine) is in love with her brother's forthcoming wedding. She has a private dream that her brother and his bride will take her away. Frankie's feeling of being caged is palpable. The text is hypnotic, it's like the words are tying you up as you read. It's slip-knot fiction that makes your throat and heart constrict as it gets closer and closer to The Event that is the wedding. And then - we don't see the wedding, we only read about it and not until page 168 (of 189). " The wedding was like a dream outside her power... " It is nothing like Frankie imagined. " her cheap heart hurt. It was a framed game. The cards were stacked ..." This is a strange and beautiful novel - I kept waiting for an epiphany or some huge evidence of change, but there is none of that. There is just the accruing sadness, loneliness. The novel ends hopefully (beautiful last line!) but I don't know that Frankie's grown. I read this in my early twenties, but it didn't have such an impact on me then, other than I loved its poetry. I wonder if it's one of those books that resonates only after you've racked up some big sads. It also reminded me of the short film Crackerbag (Glendyn Ivin) and the idea of the first big disappointment... that is surely our entry into adulthood. " It was the hour when the shapes in the kitchen darkened and voices bloomed. They spoke softly and their voices bloomed like flowers - if sounds can be like flowers and voices bloom. F. jasmine stood with her hands clasped behind her head, facing the darkening room. She had the feeling that unknown words were in her throat, and she was ready to speak them. Strange words were flowering in her throat and now was the time for her to name them .

The member of the wedding

THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

The member of the wedding, complete-unabridged

The member of the wedding

Carson McCullers' The member of the wedding