When I was a grade school kid in Georgia some 60 years ago, my teacher, Miss Betty Lou Parker had all of us little crackers give Valentine\u2019s Day cards to each and every fellow student in the class, male, female, didn\u2019t matter. Be My Valentine. We each got about 30 of those, the one day of the year we were encouraged to offer — and accept — a simple gesture of love.
\nWhat innocent creatures we were! What a long time it would take to arrive here today. If you had told me — even 5 years ago — gay marriage would be legal, much less that I would be officiating one, well, times DO change.
\nThey say Love Conquers All. That may or may not be true if you ask this cynical old fool \u2026 but I will tell you, it beats the alternatives. Be MY Valentine. Be My Friend. Be My Partner. Be the Love of my Life.
\nWe\u2019re here today \u2026 to celebrate a love that did conquer all. .. and we\u2019re here today to celebrate Amy and Laura\u2019s love for one another and our love for them.
\nSo without further ramblings on my part, let\u2019s marry these two lovebirds before they change their minds \u2026 or Congress changes the laws of the land \u2026 or the Supreme Court rules Valentine\u2019s Day unconstitutional.
\n[Later] So, by the power invested in internet ordinations and this consecrated cowboy hat, I pronounce you married in the state of California and in the hearts of all of us present today. Go ahead and make out a little, it\u2019s legal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a grade school kid in Georgia some 60 years ago, my teacher, Miss Betty Lou Parker had all of us little crackers give Valentine\u2019s Day cards to each and every fellow student in the class, male, female, didn\u2019t matter. Be My Valentine. We each got about 30 of those, the one day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[1100],"class_list":["post-10224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-skeeter-officiates-a-wedding"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10224"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15854,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224\/revisions\/15854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}