Chapel

The rainbow colors of Gay Pride Week will shine through the stained glass windows of a pop-up chapel on the top of the Wythe Hotel this week.

The hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is borrowing Brooklyn artist Tom Fruin’s sculptured house “Maxikiosco” and setting it on the rooftop terrace of the restaurant The Ides. Fruin also designed the the colorful sign for the hotel.

Gay couples wanting to get married can book the chapel from June 27-29th. The hotel will provide a secular or religious service, champagne, cake, and portrait photo of the wedding party. The chapel area can hold up to twenty guests, and the restaurant The Ides several hundred. The couple needs a marriage license and two witnesses (though the hotel can provide them). Artist Shantell Martin will be officiating at the weddings, though the couple may provide their own officiant.

To book the chapel call 347-390-0947 or email events@wythehotel.com

Fruin, who is a friend of the hotel’s founders, Peter Lawrence and Andrew Tarlaw, has produced other stained-glass structures. His “Watertower,” lite up by sunlight during the day and a light show by night was a spectacular colorful beacon set on top of Dumbo warehouse at 20 Jay Street in 2012.

 

Religious participation in 2014 Gay Pride Parade

In addition to the chapel Gay Pride Week includes other religious activities, including about two dozen religious groups marching in the parade on Sunday:

Affirmation and Mormons for Equality

African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change

American Jewish World Service

AXIOS Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christians

Bailey House

Celebration Spiritual Center

Church of St. Francis Xavier

Collegiate Churches of New York

Congregation Beit Simchat Torah

The Episcopal Church

From Queer to Eternity

God’s Love We Deliver

Good Shepherd Services

Grace Church of Brooklyn Heights

LGBT Catholics and Friends

Madison Avenue Baptist Church

Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship

Methodists in New Directions

Metropolitan Community Church of New York

New York Insight Meditation Center

Park Avenue Christian Church

Quakers of NYC (The Religious Society of Friends, NYQM)

Realization Center

Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International

St. Clement’s Episcopal Church

Note: the Catholic League has filed an application to participate in the parade with a banner “Straight is Great.” The parade organizers said that they would welcome the participation of the Catholic League, but Bill Donohue of the League says that he objects to being forced to attend “gay training sessions, or what they call ‘information’ sessions.” The tempest is part of the ongoing controversy over whether pro-Gay advocacy groups can participate in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Donohue’s group decided to test the willingness of Heritage of Pride/NYC Pride to admit anti-gay groups into the Gay Pride Week parade. David Studinski, director of NYC Pride, said in a press release, “Mr. Donohue and his group are free to participate in the 2014 March….Straight is great – as long as there’s no hate.” The gay group sent instructions to Donohue on how register.