"History And Love Celebrate Today..."

West Point In N.Y. To Host First Same-Sex Wedding Between Two Men

Friday, November 1, 2013
WEST POINT, N.Y.


Two graduates of West Point are set to become the first men to marry each other at the storied military academy.

Larry Choate III, class of 2009, will marry Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, on Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel.

West Point hosted two same-sex weddings of women in late 2012, more than a year after New York legalized gay marriage. But this is the first time two men are being wed at West Point.
“It’s maybe one more barrier that’s pushed over a little bit, or maybe one more glass ceiling that’s shattered that makes it easier for the next couple,” Choate said Friday.

Choate, 27, said the landmark Gothic chapel at the Hudson Valley academy is a special place and it’s an honor to be wed there. He taught Sunday school at the chapel as a cadet and always thought of it as the place he would get married, if he could.

The pair did not know each other as cadets, but met later through a mutual friend.

Both men are out of the military. Lennox, a 28-year-old from Washington, D.C, is getting his master’s degree in business administration at Harvard University in Massachusetts. Choate, from Seattle, works at the business school there and is applying to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Despite the precedent, Choate stressed that he and Lennox are just like any other couple wed in the sprawling chapel.

“It’s going to be just like every other wedding there,” he said, “except probably a lot smaller and no bride.”

******

Epilogue:

Lennox and Choate emerge from the Chapel following their marriage today