Thomas Moulton & Brendan Fay, a couple well known for their involvement in gay rights activism and work with children with cancer and sickle cell disease held their wedding ceremony on Saturday, May 24, at the Episcopal Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn Heights.

Saturday’s ceremony drew a large pool of witnesses from Tom and Brendan's personal and professional lives, including members of the religious and gay communities, elected officials, same-sex marriage advocates, friends, and immediate family.

The ceremony capped off New York’s first “Right To Marry Week” where the couple, along with nearly two dozen activists from Rochester to the State Capital to Brooklyn and Queens, met with judiciary committee members of the state legislature urging support for the “right to marry” legislation. The bills were recently introduced by Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried and Senator Thomas K. Duane and are aimed at amending the Domestic Relations Law to provide that “an otherwise-valid marriage shall be valid without regard to whether the parties are of the same or different sex.”

Brendan and Tom are among the first of same-sex couples in New York to obtain a marriage license in Canada, where gay marriages were recently made legal (in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia).

Brendan and Tom have spoken publicly on same-sex marriage and, in an effort to communicate the significance of civil marriage rights to their and other same-sex couples’ lives, invited the public to attend their wedding. As a result, their ceremony in New York and their marriage in Canada have garnered unprecedented media coverage in both national and international television and newsprint. (Click here to view just some of the newsprint and video coverage of Tom and Brendan's wedding)

The couple met on January 28, 1996, at a Sunday evening mass held by the Catholic, gay group, Dignity NY. On June of 1997, during lesbian and gay pride weekend, Fay accepted Moulton’s proposal from a few month’s earlier. Immediately the couple began to alert family and friends about their plans to wed and, on June 6th, 2000, registered as a domestic partners with the City of New York.

Fay, 45, was born in Drogheda, Ireland, and holds a Masters degree in Theology from St. John’s University. Since immigrating to New York in 1984, he has organized on numerous gay and civil rights issues and is founder of Lavender and Green Alliance, a gay Irish group. He is also founder of the city’s only inclusive St. Patrick’s parade in Queens, which allows gay and lesbian groups. A presenter at spiritual retreats and universities, Fay is also producer of the documentary series “From Silence To Speech: Stories of Being Gay In America” which has aired nationally on public television stations.

Moulton, also 45, was born in LaGrange, Illinois and grew up in Brimfield. A pediatric hematologist oncologist at Montefiore Medical Center, he earned his medical degree at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Illinois and did his residency at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, followed by a fellowship at Babies Hospital of New York.

The couple have been recently active with the fledgling organization, the Children’s Circle of Hope, benefiting children with cancer and sickle cell disease and with the Civil Marriage Trail, an organization that helps aid interested couples on getting legally wed in Canada (and soon Massachusetts!).