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Shirts worn by Kenneth Scott and Brian Bigler at their Holy Union ceremony, July 22, 1995

Source: Wisconsin Historical Museum object 2012.49.1 and 2012.49.3

Shirts worn by Kenneth Scott and Brian Bigler at their Holy Union ceremony, July 22, 1995
(Museum objects 2012.49.1 and .3)

For most of history, long-term romantic commitments between same sex-couples were not sanctioned by the church or state and were rarely even acknowledged. As more and more LGBT people left the closet in the 1960s and 70s, the idea of public celebrations of commitment began to seem possible. Just as straight people had been doing for millennia, same-sex couples sought ways to affirm and celebrate their relationships in the presence of family and friends. In the absence of legal and religious frameworks and years of tradition, gay and lesbian couples had to develop their own commitment ceremonies.

Kenneth Scott and Brian Bigler opted for a casual approach in their “Holy Union” ceremony, which occurred on July 22, 1995, at Madison’s the First Unitarian Church. This was one of the earliest known gay union ceremonies in Madison. As Bigler explained, “We wanted the event to be casual and colorful (thus the shirts) and to make our friends feel at home. I also wanted to be somewhat coordinated with Ken, but certainly not matching. Ken has never liked a tie so this aided in the casual approach.”

In 2012, Bigler and Scott donated these shirts to the Wisconsin Historical Society, along with the rest of the clothes they wore that day, an invitation and program for the event, and the altar cloth used at the ceremony.

As joyful as public acknowledgments of commitment may have been, they were not the legal equivalent of marriage. Under US law, marriage conveys significant legal benefits, including favorable tax rates and adoption and medical rights. Same-sex couples continued to face legal discrimination, especially after 2006, when a majority of Wisconsin voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that banned same-sex marriage or any legal equivalent. This state of affairs was not corrected until June 2015, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.