Clandestine Gay Marriage Performed in White House Against Obama's Wishes, Former Speechwriter Claims
Jon Lovett, a former White House speech writer to President Barack Obama, claimed at last week's Aspen Ideas Festival that he performed a secret same-sex wedding at the White House.
Lovett believes Obama had no knowledge of the secret and rushed same-sex ceremony and believes his then boss would not have approved of the event.
While the recording of Lovett's talk is not yet available, Mike Allen of Politico reported Lovett's comments which took place during "The Moth Radio Hour" podcast at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Lovett claims it was the first same-sex marriage at the White House.
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"Steve and Justin and I walked through the double doors," declared Lovett, "into the ground floors of the West Wing, past the Situation Room, down the hall past the offices of the [NSC], up the stairs by the cabinet room and the Oval Office, through the doors of the Colonnade that connect the offices of the West Wing to the stately rooms of the residence, and we turned right down the stone path that jutted into the Rose Garden and then I said, 'Steve do you take Justin to be your lawfully wedded husband? And Justin, do you take Steve?'"
Lovett claimed he could give tours of the White House anytime he wanted and talked about the nerves the three men felt because they believed it was against the president's "wishes" at the time.
"We were very nervous, they were nervous because they were getting married," says Lovett. "I was nervous because I snuck into my boss' house to perform a wedding against his wishes in his backyard.
"You can say what you will about the first same-sex marriage at the White House, at the very least it was quite rude … They kissed modestly, … and then I filed the paperwork"
Lovett states the only proof of the nuptials was that he had to list The White House address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when he filled out the paperwork for "Steve and Justin."
Same-sex marriage was passed by the District of Columbia in December of 2009 and D.C. started issuing licenses in March of 2010.
Although the exact time and year of the wedding stunt is unknown, Lovett worked in the White House during President Obama's first term. Before Obama's reelection, the president was still publicly opposed to homosexual weddings and according to him his views had not yet fully "evolved." Although, former adviser David Axelrod claimed in a recent book that Obama was misleading at the time and always supported gay marriage.
Lovett, who left the White House for Hollywood in 2011, recently worked as a writer and adviser on the HBO series "The Newsroom." During the podcast, he declared he went into politics for same reasons others do: "ambition, self-righteousness, and a desire to help others."
The Moth podcast is "an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. It is a celebration of both the raceonteur, who breathes fire into true tales of ordinary life, and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it."
Lovett, previously worked for Hillary Clinton as a speechwriter in her U.S. Senate office and during her failed presidential campaign in 2008. Lovett co-created the short lived NBC Series "The Penn," and according to his bio is currently working on a political series for Showtime. On Twitter, Lovett recently declared, "being gay is great" and joked about taking Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to a screening of "Magic Mike," a movie about male strippers.
