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Living on opposite sides of the world, US-based John McCane and Salaphaty Rao met on an online support group for LGBT Hindus. Intrigued by a post John shared in the group, Salaphaty, studying in Melbourne at the time, reached out to him and soon sparked a conversation that ended up lasting for hours. Facebook chats soon turned into Skype conversations, and the pair finally decided to meet and together, they took a spiritual journey across India in December, 2013. “I was very unsure until I met him face to face. I still remember the way he smiled at me the first time I saw him. I will also always remember the way my heart skipped a beat at seeing him,” recollects John.
The two travelled around the country, taking each other to their favourite places and grew fonder of each other with each passing day. Salaphaty fell terribly ill when they were in Kolkata and John did what he could to nurse him back to health, though the situation only served to bring them closer. By the end of the trip, John says he knew that he wanted to spend his life with Salaphaty.
Salaphaty first met his partner’s parents when he visited him in the US in 2013. “I did not meet his parents ‘officially’ until I went to Melbourne this past January and stayed with them. Though, I did know his parents from our multiple skype conversations,” John tells us. “Both sets of parents have been incredibly welcoming and warm to each of us. There may have been some cultural quirks that my parents had to get used to when meeting Salaphaty, even pronouncing his name at first. But, they fell in love with him in just a few days of meeting him.”
During a trip to the US in June 2015, Salaphaty proposed to John, returning to Melbourne after he slowly began coming out to his extended family. “I felt the need to have a proper Vedic engagement ceremony for my side of family members, especially for my parents to witness,” said Salaphaty. With this in mind, Salaphaty’s family hosted the Johns in Melbourne where the two got engaged following the Vedic tradition and rituals of a nichayathartham, in January 2016; For John, it was a dream come true. “Ah, with all the recent celebrity it seems we may have to have a huge wedding!”
John tells us jokingly when we ask him about their wedding plans. “To be honest, I was wanting a massive stereotypical south Indian-style function like the engagement. Just watch Krishna Vamsi’s film Murari with Mahesh Babu and you’ll see the wedding that I want to have!” he adds. “Though seriously, we will have to have two weddings, one in the US and one either in India or in Australia for the religious rituals to be conducted, and so that all of our family and friends can participate.”
John shares that the only real problem they faced beforehand was with finding a willing priest. “The religious community as a whole, both the conservative and liberal sides, supported us entirely, but, and this could do to the simple fact of a scheduling issue, we could not find a priest. Thankfully, both Salaphaty and I are trained in Sanskrit and Agama (Salaphaty having completed all training to be considered a bhattacharya) so we did the rituals ourselves.”
Photographs taken of their engagement ceremony have since gone viral, and they really are lovely, but not everyone is as forward-thinking as Salaphaty and John’s parents, especially in traditional Indian society. When asked for his opinion on the current status of Article 377 in India, John says, “In some ways, India has a hand up more than the West. For instance, in India and southeast Asia, the third sex is quite common. Today, sadly they have been pushed to the fringes of society, but this does open the doors for dialogue and education. In the experiences that I have had, I really have to say that most Indians are wonderfully progressive and liberal while wanting to preserve the absolutely glorious traditions of the past. With a little mindful education, a lot can be done. I really expect that in the next ten years India will begin to open up and start the conversation she needs to have to properly acknowledge her LGBTQ citizens, and there really are so many of us. Like with the virility of our story, I hope that at the very least it can create some meaningful dialogue and that we can be open and proud for everyone who isn’t able to be as yet.”
It’s Salaphaty’s commitment to his faith, culture and desire to educate others about it that John admires the most. “I have learnt so much from him, I am sure that I cannot pick just one of the many many things he has taught me,” he says. When asked what advice he would give to a person that is struggling to deal with or come to terms with their sexuality, John says, “You aren’t alone--I grew up in a conservative Christian community in rural Ohio and that sentence is everything I wish I could have heard when I was struggling to understand how I felt. I had so many feelings and urges inside that I could not explain or understand. Just knowing that I wasn’t the only one, that I wasn’t in some way ‘broken’ would have meant the world.” He urges parents to accept their children as who they are. “You have a choice, to either accept them and live as a happy and open family, or to demean them and lose your child due to your own intolerance.” He’s seen it go both ways, it’s a sad situation he says for children who have to face such prejudice at the hands of their own parents, who even after reconciliation never have the same relationship again.
John’s solution for the homophobes is to either educate themselves and grow up, or be on the wrong side of history. “Due to our recent internet celebrity, Salaphaty was out with his parents just yesterday and was accosted and told to leave from the place, he was told that he wasn’t welcome. Thankfully, that single voice was drowned out by the entirety of everyone else in the function who welcomed them with open arms--homophobes are definitely on the losing side.”
The future looks very bright for the happy couple who plan to marry next year and with the dream to open an eco-friendly, self-sustaining temple and ashram that would be welcome to people of all faiths, genders and sexual orientation. “John and I, have been working on constructing a temple and ashram for LGBT Hindus and Interfaith to promote vedic culture and sustainable living. After we are married, we are going to work on this project together in effort of inspiring and bringing spiritually minded LGBT people and allies together,” Salaphaty shared with Gaylaxy.
We’ve posted below some of our favourite photographs of the engagement ceremony taken by Bilal.A Photography, courtesy of John McCane and Salaphaty Rao. You can view the rest of the photographs here, and send across your best wishes and blessings to the happy couple.
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