Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?"

THE groom’s mother wore a peach silk suit and an expression of mingled happiness, anxiety and bemusement. The other groom’s mother wore a peacock-blue dress and a similar expression, one that seemed to combine “I can’t believe this is happening” with “What a beautiful day, what a lovely chapel, what nice well-dressed people — just like a real wedding.”

One groom’s father needed to step outside and smoke a lot. The other groom’s father was dead. Nieces were in abundance, though — a bouquet of skinny adorable girls, dressed in hot pink and giggling with excitement.

But I didn’t have a lot of time to gawk at the family members because I was a huppah holder at this gay Christian wedding, and our routine was intricately choreographed.

The huppah, in the Jewish tradition, is a canopy, often made from a prayer shawl, whose corners are held up on poles by four people close to the wedding couple. But these grooms, Randy and Michael, were Catholic — super Catholic in fact. Michael had been a seminarian, preparing for the Jesuit priesthood in a former life, and Randy a Benedictine monk, deeply steeped in prayer, contemplation and service.

Thus begins a quite long quotation which wanders about this gayCatholicJewish "wedding" before detouring into an outing to see a documentary film about the Winter Soldier "hearings" in 1972. What could the two possibly have in common? That both are utter lies comes first to mind.

I had never taken communion, out of respect and also out of a vague fear that, as a Jew, I would be struck with thunderbolts if I did. But the minister and Michael and Randy said this communion was for everyone, that it could mean whatever we wanted it to, and after all it was challah. So I stood in line, dunked my bread in the cider, and was generously showered with a Jesus-free blessing by a minister friend.

I found this nonsense posted by a silly person, an Episcopal priest, who herself explains:

I've had the honor and privilege of presiding at a few of these kinds of services - probably the most notable of which was the "Mickenburg-Fitzgerald" Blessing Ceremony - a delightfully rich blend of Jewish, Irish-Roman Catholic, Feminist Ritual, "in the Episcopal tradition."

[I consign to the category "questions best not asked" any inquiry into exactly what "feminist ritual" might possibly be.]

But what is the harm? The harm lies in teaching that which is not the truth, and in degrading our own notions of what is right, and what is important.

Marriage may be an institution ordained by the Creator and Judge of the Universe, or it may be no big deal. If the latter, what shall I tell my son when he explains that he has tired of his bride, the kids keep him awake at night, and life just isn't fun anymore? I cannot remind him of promises made to God, his wife, his family, and his friends, since all of those things are no big deal.

Communion may be a ceremony the Lord commanded his followers to observe, or it may be a trivial nothing. What shall we tell unbelievers it ought to focus their minds upon? And if it is a nothing, then what power can it have to save us? One may wonder both by what authority a "minister" offered a "Jesus-free" blessing, and of what such a "blessing" might consist. Perhaps the Jesus-free minister also fills the gas tank of his car with water, in order to experience that special "fuel free" surge of power.

It is common for the ignorant and the malicious to sneer that anything and everything can be proved from Scripture. But the Lord minced no words concerning false teachers:

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.