When Shawn and I started to decide on the elements we wanted in our ceremony we kept returning to the question of how to include our commitment to not only one another but also to our community and country. 

This invocation is how we decided to fit it all into our short ceremony.  We think of it as a celebration of our queer identity and our political values. It’s our vow to working as a pair to honour our culture, people and values. 

Political and Cultural Invocation 

A well meaning person remarked on hearing that Shawn and Ian were getting married that they were “lucky to have that chance” in Canada. The couple responded that it had nothing to do with luck, but rather much more to do with determination. 

It was the determination and the desire to be treated equally that lead gay and lesbian couples to demand the legal recognition we will see conferred in today’s ceremony.  Our people fought and won this right in the courts. Parliament may have eventually approved our partnerships, but they did so only after Canada’s queer community made it inevitable. 

This is one of the reasons Shawn and Ian have chosen to keep the legal and the emotional parts of today connected, but indeed separate. This is a recognition that lesbians and gays didn’t need state sanction for their vows - for decades we married anyways. Our good friends “the Matts,” who are here with us today spoke their vows to one another, in this very restaurant, before it was legal to do so in Canada. 

Shawn and Ian are dedicated Canadian citizens and are proud that our country is only one of nine nations in the world that have no official legal heterosexist discrimination. 

But, just weeks ago our community lost one of its youngest members, because while the laws of the land can change rapidly - it takes time and effort to change hearts of the people living those laws.  

And as they move forward with their life together they are today committing to working in tandem as out and proud men to work to end all forms of discrimination against minorities, aboriginals, children and women in Canada.

Our good friend Jaime Woo read these words at our wedding.

Photo by Dan Brien