This week on Kveller, Rita Collins told her story of falling in love, facing discrimination, growing her family, and getting married. She shared how “a wedding and its preparation can really connect you to Judaism,” and reflected on how her marriage helped her feel more at ease with both being gay and being Jewish. 

So, a rabbi, a Hindu doctor, and two lesbians walk into a country club…

It’s not the start of a joke, but a few years ago people would have been laughing at the idea that this was the start of a wedding story.

My relationship began just a few days before Prop 8 passed in California (I had only been in heterosexual relationships up until that point). I remember driving on the freeway in Los Angeles and hearing the news that the proposition had unexpectedly passed and that gay marriage, which had been legal for four months in California, was now illegal. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to be married at that point, but I remember thinking to myself for the first time in my life: so, this is what bigotry feels like.

I had always supported gay rights and gay marriage, even before realizing my own attractions to the same sex, but I don’t think there is a way of truly understanding bigotry until you are the victim of it. I had been married to a man…I met him, we had a relationship, and one day we chose to get married, but now I wouldn’t have that right anymore, because I was falling in love with a woman. I am truly not a very emotional person, but I remember driving on the freeway that day and crying.

Read the rest of Rita’s story at Kveller!