On the day of the wedding, Aug. 2, they arrived in a patient lounge in separate wheelchairs. There were no tuxedoes. Instead, the hospital provided matching white sweat pants and sweatshirts from its inventory and matching yellow rose boutonnieres.
They had the wedding in the lounge rather than the chapel, which Mr. Townsend said he felt no personal connection to. He did not miss the pomp. “I wanted to have the simplest, most heartfelt situation,” he said.
Mr. Beaumont, the more religious of the two, asked his pastor, the Rev. Glenn B. Chalmers, and former pastor, the Rev. Elizabeth Maxwell, of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea, to officiate. Mr. Beaumont admires the church for its soup kitchen. But priests in the Episcopal Diocese of New York cannot legally perform same-sex marriages, so they called in a colleague, the Rev. John E. Denaro, of the diocese of Long Island, where it is allowed, to join them and to sign the forms. “I’m John Doe — or Jane Doe,” Father Denaro said jokingly, getting into the cloak-and-dagger spirit. Full story at NY Times
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