LOVE IS LOVE: Marriages that cross boundaries

Today’s post marks a new series on the blog called LOVE IS LOVE where I will be documenting some very special marriages that cross boundaries that (to put it quite bluntly) certain ignoramus’s across the globe find unacceptable. Love is love, no matter if you’re of one faith or another, if you’re straight or if you’re LGBT.

It may be the annual Gay Pride festival this weekend in my home city of London, but that’s just a happy coincidence. This series has been triggered in response to an email I received last weekend from a young woman in India who greatly benefitted from Yana and Archita’s same-sex, mixed faith wedding that I lovingly blogged last year. I am reprinting her email, with her permission, below:

Hi Karen,

This is probably a pretty unorthodox request. You don’t know me but I’m reaching out because I am an Indian girl who recently came out to my parents as gay and they are having a lot of trouble dealing with it and imagining that I could have a happy life with a woman – especially in India (they currently live in Bangalore).

I believe that part of it is because our extended family, and all our friends are conservative (and fairly ignorant) community. I was hoping that if they could see, or speak to, happily married Indian lesbians, they might believe that happiness is possible even for me.

I noticed you wrote an article on Yana & Archita and was wondering if you could forward this email to Archita and ask her if she would be willing to speak with me?

Thank you so, so much.

It goes without saying that I passed the reader’s letter to Archita and the two of them are now in contact.

I want to use this space to bring more love to more people, and to show how every kind of love is perfectly valid. No-one should be able to tell you how to live, who to love, and who you should be spending a lifetime with. Love is universal and unbiased.

The film below? Now that’s ‘LOVE IS LOVE. It’s a video of a police officer breaking ranks with his colleagues to propose to his boyfriend yesterday at Pride in London.

The rest of his team look so pleased for him too! This film moves me so much, and it’s everything I value about living in this great country.

I would be so delighted to hear from you if you would like to write a post (anonymously if desired) about your ‘LOVE IS LOVE’ marriage on Smashing The Glass. And if you know a couple that might like to share their story, do send them my way.

So let’s kick off the series by featuring some of my favourite images from Yana and Archita’s Jewish-Hindu-Indian-Russian multicultural lesbian wedding. To see more images from their big day, and to read their story (in their own words), head over here .