Some Couples Using Excerpt from Gay “Marriage” Decision in Their Weddings

St. Paul getting upstaged by Justice Anthony Kennedy

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Move over, St. Paul. There’s a new favorite wedding reading.

Most people who have attended a nuptials ceremony have heard St. Paul’s lyrical passage about love: “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous…”

Now, reports the Associated Press, since the US Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex “marriage,” words from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion are being used by many same-sex couples in their weddings.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were,” reads the concluding paragraph of Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, issued June 26.

It’s the passage that Emily Smith and Jillian Levine chose for their ceremony in Massachusetts Saturday, but wedding officiants from as far away as Australia said both gay and straight couples are asking them to incorporate excerpts from the ruling into their ceremonies, AP said.

Bernadette Smith, a wedding planner and the founder of the New York-based Gay Wedding Institute, which trains those in the wedding industry on working with gay couples, predicted it would soon become “the most popular same-sex marriage ceremony reading.” And celebrants from places including Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana and Pennsylvania acknowledged quickly adding Kennedy’s words to packets of potential readings they give couples.