There Was A Secret Gay Wedding Held In The White House Rose Garden
While giving a speech at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week, screenwriter Jon Lovett (HBO's The Newsroom) revealed that during his time as a speechwriter within the Obama administration he both engineered and officiated a secret same-sex wedding at the White House.
Related: Kenyan House Speaker Wants To Forbid Obama From Speaking About Gay Marriage Upon His Next Visit
While Lovett did not pinpoint the exact date of the wedding, it's clear–knowing that Washington D.C. began issuing licenses to same-sex couples in 2010 and that Lovett left the White House at the end of 2011–that the ceremony took place sometime before Obama came out in favor of marriage equality in 2012.
According to Lovett, he invited his best friends Justin and Steve (former boy scouts, no less!) to visit the White House on the pretense of a "tour."
He recounts the details as follows:
Steve and Justin and I walked through the double doors, into the ground floor of the West Wing, past the Situation Room, down the hall past the offices of the National Security Council, up the stairs by the cabinet room and the Oval Office, through the doors of the Colonnade that connect the offices of the West Wing to the stately rooms of the residence, we turned right down the stone path that jutted into the Rose Garden and then I said, ‘Steve, do you take Justin to be your lawfully wedded husband? And Justin, do you take Steve?
Now we were very nervous. They were nervous because they were getting married. I was nervous because I snuck into my boss’ house to perform a wedding against his wishes in his backyard. You can say what you will about the first same sex marriage to take place at the White House, at the very least it was quite rude.
I was so nervous that in going through it I said, 'I now pronounce you man and wi...' and catching myself we laughed and I fixed it and said husbands. They kissed modestly. It was very nice. And then I filed the paperwork, the only real evidence that this took place, because I had to list the address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
