“I (Skype) do”
Nuptials via Skype. Can it be done? Maybe, but who would want to? One group which might is gay couples who live in states which don’t allow same sex marriage. A couple of months ago, two gay men had a wedding ceremony in their home town of Dallas in the decidedly not-gay-friendly state of Texas, with a minister officiating via Skype from Washington, D.C., where same-sex marriage is legal. So clever! Ultimately, the marriage was invalidated by D.C. on a technicality (despite the fact that D.C. had issued a marriage license), and the grooms were told they would have to re-do the ceremony in D.C. in order to validate the marriage. Nonetheless, it’s clear that this is just the beginning of something big.
Marriage laws are all state specific. But where are you when you’re on the internet? You’re nowhere and everywhere. If a state will issue a marriage license so long as the officiant performs the marriage within its borders, isn’t the officiant complying when she boots up her computer from her church in Massachusetts and addresses the happy couple via Skype as they stand before family and friends in, let’s say, Alabama? The Evangelical Right will surely rush right out and try to amend state marriage statutes so as to prevent this, but, as with everything motivated by a desire to curtail the scope and power of the internet, ultimately it’s likely to be a losing battle.
And if that won’t work, consider what another gay couple recently did – they got married on a flight from San Francisco to New York while the plane was briefly in Canadian airspace. Sounds like a jolly time, as passengers happily tweeted news of the on-board ceremony. In their never-ending quest for more extras to charge for, perhaps a gay-friendly airline which flies over countries where same-sex marriage is legal will start offering in-flight wedding packages? Could be the new thing for 2011.