Hindu & Jew wed in UK’s first-ever lesbian interfaith marriage
A Hindu and a Jew tied the knot on Saturday in Britain’s first-ever lesbian interfaith marriage.
Bearing traditional red-and-white bridal garments, Kalavati Mistry, from Leicester, and Miriam Jefferson, who is from Texas, wedded at the Chutney Ivy restaurant in Leicester city center over the weekend in front of family and friends.
Mistry, 48, said she had kept her sexuality hidden, and only came out to her strictly conservative parents a few years ago. She needn’t have worried, as her parents embraced Jefferson “very well.”
“Marriage is very important to me,” she told the Daily Mail.
“I grew up in a very traditional household, and really value the traditions and the culture.
“To me, I wanted to spend my life with someone, in a union. Some of the rituals that you do in a wedding are very important. I wanted me and Miriam to join in that union.”
The couple had already married in a Jewish ceremony in San Antonio, Texas, earlier this year, but Mistry said a Hindu wedding would “complete both of us in my eyes.”
They plan to live in the US.
Mistry encouraged others in the LGBT community to exercise their right to marry.
“I do hope they take the plunge in getting married. It really is something that’s truly wonderful,” she said.
Asifa Lahore, who is considered to be the UK’s first Muslim drag queen, recently claimed same-sex Muslim marriages in the UK are “thriving.”
She said marriage is as important for people in the Muslim LGBT community as it is for heterosexuals, and called on more people to use their recently acquired civil liberties.
“In south Asian Muslim culture, marriage is very much a milestone.
“Even if you identify as LGBT, marriage plays a big part in your upbringing and your psyche and I think LGBT Muslims in Britain are taking real advantage of equal marriage,” Lahore told the Times.
“We live in a country where we now have access to equal rights and they should be exercised.
“It would break my heart if there were LGBT Muslims out there who didn’t feel they were able to marry,” Lahore added.
