I thought Mayor Jason West was crying, but that’s only because I was. “Allergies are awful this year,” he said. “My eyes are killing me. The contact lenses only make it worse.”
Through my tears I told him that a frost was expected that very night and he would get some relief by morning. That’s about as personal as our conversation got, although I tried to pry answers from him to my questions. “I don’t discuss my emotional or private life with anyone,” he said. “That’s my policy.”
At 4:30 p.m. this past Thursday, on another bleak wet day, the Village Hall seemed nondescript and dingy. There was nothing in the décor or architecture of the building to distinguish it from the thousands of other small town government buildings in America. Appearances are deceiving. It’s different here.
A crowd of about 75 people, mostly grey-haired veterans of the sixties generation, were assembled for a celebration without food or drink. It was a wedding without any trimmings — no white dress, no one wearing anything more dressy than what they would wear to ShopRite on a cold rainy evening. The only splash of color was a few bouquets of flowers, each held in the hands of brides-to-be.
The occasion was the legal marriage of long-time New Paltz citizens Judy Mage and Tona Wilson. The wedding invitations had been casually delivered by the brides-to-be to friends they happened to run into. It seemed that everyone they asked showed up.
For Judy and Tona, this was their third ceremony. The first was a domestic partnership in Vermont. The second was a big illegal wedding with all the trimmings on June 3, 2001. Just before the vows and the familiar words “in sickness and in health until death do you part” were spoken, Judy said, “If you think this is just a gesture, it’s not. Tomorrow I will go with the marriage certificate to my employer and Tona will be covered by my health insurance.” Everyone applauded.
The couple has been living together for years. Together they raised a son to manhood. Like all long-term relationships they knew from experience what it means to commit to stay together through adversity, aging and a world changing around them.
Their vows: “I promise to remain honest and faithful. I promise to care for your well-being. I promise to believe in your hopes and dreams, and to help and encourage you to pursue them. I promise to recognize your freedom to grow as an individual and to allow you the time and space to do so. I promise never to take for granted your goodwill and trust our good fortune, our shared life. I promise to be your beloved companion. I commit to live with you in good time and bad, with faithfulness and tenderness, from this day forward.”
When the ceremony was over and Jason said, “You may now kiss the bride,” they just hugged like two old friends. Then Jeremy Mage, their son, who was recently married himself, started to sing “Ha’va Naglia” and all the guests got up and danced around Village Hall.
Tona approached me and asked if I would like to be a legal witness to the marriage and sign the marriage certificate. That’s when the tears came. What an honor. What a mitzvah (good deed) she allowed me to do.
Afterward, I sat down with Jason. “You must be so proud. You began all of this, right here in New Paltz. What’s that like for you now, looking back on all that led to this day?”
“I didn’t start anything,” he said. “This is a result of the coming-out movement, when fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons came-out to their loved ones and were accepted by their families. That is what changed perceptions and led to this,” he said.
Not for everyone. My brother only came out to himself in his late thirties. He waited until our father was dead because he was so afraid of rejection, so terrified to disappoint him. He was never in a relationship. He never accepted his homosexuality. He died lonely.
My best friend, a gay man, was rejected by his entire family. It created a downward spiral in his life, which he still struggles to overcome decades later.
“Do you see your courage in performing the first gay marriages in America as your crowning achievement, so far?” I asked.
“You keep trying to get me to discuss my personal and emotional reactions. I don’t do that,” Jason said. “Okay. I’ll give you this. I was only 26. I had just been elected mayor. I didn’t have a personal reason for doing this. No gay relative. It just was the right thing to do. I had never given an interview in any publication larger than the New Paltz Times. I wasn’t looking for notoriety of any kind. I just wanted to participate in what I knew was justice. Then there was media from all over the world; requests for interviews. It was much bigger than I thought it would be.”
“But what was it like for you to perform those ceremonies one after the other? Now that you are performing legal marriages, how is it different?” I asked.
“I enjoy the legal ones more. After all, isn’t that was it was all about, what it was all for?” he replied.
“But that first day in the park, when you were 26 years old, you married all those couples who, at the time, were second-class citizens without the civil right afforded to everyone else. Well, what did that feel like?” I asked.
“All I am willing to tell you,” he said, “is that it was one of the best days of my life.”
Not only of your life, Jason West. It was the best day for hundreds of people, now thousands and thousands more to come.
Join the family! 
