Same-sex couples in WA start taking wedding vows

Aya Bent­ley, right, 14, of Belle­vue, Wash., uses a small bubble-maker as she joins other well-wishers con­grat­u­lat­ing gay and les­bian new­ly­weds at Seat­tle City Hall Sun­day in Seat­tle. Gov. Chris Gre­goire signed a voter-approved law legal­iz­ing gay mar­riage Dec. 5 and wed­dings for gay and les­bian cou­ples began in Wash­ing­ton state on Sun­day, fol­low­ing the three-day wait­ing period after mar­riage licenses were issued ear­lier in the week. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Elaine Thompson)

RACHEL LA CORTE

Asso­ci­ated Press

SEATTLE — Scores of same-sex cou­ples crowded Seat­tle City Hall for a day of wed­ding cer­e­monies on Sun­day, the first day they could marry after the state’s voter-approved gay mar­riage law took effect.

While numer­ous wed­dings were tak­ing place across the state, both pri­vate and pub­lic, the city hall wed­dings were the largest pub­lic event, with about 140 cou­ples tak­ing part. The city set up five sep­a­rate chapels to accom­mo­date the rev­el­ers. Start­ing at 10 a.m., cheers and applause reg­u­larly broke out as another couple’s mar­riage became offi­cial. Wed­dings at city hall were to con­tinue through 5 p.m.

After cou­ples mar­ried, they exited city hall, greeted by a steady rain and by dozens of sup­port­ers who cheered them with shouts of “con­grat­u­la­tions” and flow­ers as they descended a large stair­case down to the street.

“I don’t even have words for this,” said Caren Gold­en­berg of Seat­tle, who mar­ried her part­ner of seven years, Casey Evans. “It just makes me really proud of my city.”

Mayor Mike McGinn, who greeted cou­ples at they arrived, called it a “great day, a joy­ous day.”

“It’s really won­der­ful,” he said. “A new civil right is going to be rec­og­nized in this great civil institution.”

Keith Bacon and Corianton Hale of Seat­tle, who cel­e­brated their six-year anniver­sary the night before, hugged and kissed to loud cheers and cam­era flashes as they took their vows before one of the 16 local judges who vol­un­teered to offi­ci­ate the wed­dings on Sunday.

“We’re totally thrilled,” Bacon said. The cou­ple had a com­mit­ment cer­e­mony in August but said this day was par­tic­u­larly special.

“We had looked at this as maybe a day we would sign a piece of paper and seal the deal, and instead we’re hav­ing this huge party being thrown in our honor,” Bacon said. “It’s just mind blowing.”

Nancy Mon­a­han, 57, a retired petty office with the Coast Guard, waited out­side before the wed­dings began with her part­ner of 14 years, Deb Need­ham, 48.

Mon­a­han was wear­ing her uni­form, and Need­ham was wear­ing an ivory dress and jacket and match­ing hat. They said they wanted to join the large wed­ding event at city hall because of the sig­nif­i­cance of the day.

“It’s not very pri­vate, but very his­toric,” Need­ham said, to which Mon­a­han added, “And very awesome.”

Some cour­t­houses, includ­ing in King and Thurston Coun­ties, opened right at mid­night, and started mar­ry­ing cou­ples. Pri­vate wed­dings are expected to take place across the state, as well as some other pub­lic events, includ­ing the mar­riage of two cou­ples after the end of the first act of a Seat­tle Men’s Cho­rus per­for­mance at Benaroya Hall in Seat­tle. The Para­mount The­ater in Seat­tle was also to host a large wed­ding recep­tion for couples.

Hun­dreds of gay and les­bian cou­ples picked up their mar­riage licenses as early as 12:01 a.m. Thurs­day, but because of the state’s three-day wait­ing period, the ear­li­est wed­dings could take place was just after mid­night, early Sun­day morn­ing. In King County, home to Seat­tle, more than 600 same-sex mar­riage licenses were issued by Saturday.

Robin Wyss, of Seat­tle, said that the wed­ding cer­e­mony to her part­ner, Danielle Yung, was “more emo­tional than I thought it would be,” in part because Yung is five months pregnant.

“Our friends are here, it’s a beau­ti­ful space and there’s all of this love and appre­ci­a­tion,” she said. “We’ve been think­ing about this as more of a polit­i­cal cel­e­bra­tion for all of Wash­ing­ton state, but obvi­ously it’s very mean­ing­ful for us and our future child as well.”

At the Thurston County Cour­t­house just after mid­night, five cou­ples were mar­ried, includ­ing Jonathon Bash­ford, 31, and Matthew Wiltse, 29, both of Olympia.

The cou­ple, together for 10 years, just had a large com­mit­ment cer­e­mony in Sep­tem­ber when they reg­is­tered as domes­tic part­ners, but said they wanted to be among the first to legally marry.

“We weren’t going to wait one sec­ond longer,” Wiltse said.

Last month, Wash­ing­ton, Maine and Mary­land became the first states to pass same-sex mar­riage by pop­u­lar vote. They joined six other states — New York, Con­necti­cut, Iowa, Mass­a­chu­setts, New Hamp­shire, Ver­mont — and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia that had already enacted laws or issued court rul­ings per­mit­ting same-sex marriage.

Cou­ples in Mary­land also started pick­ing up mar­riage licenses Thurs­day, though their licenses won’t take effect until Jan. 1. Maine’s law takes effect on Dec. 29. There’s no wait­ing period in Maine, and peo­ple can start mar­ry­ing just after midnight.

Wash­ing­ton Gov. Chris Gre­goire and Sec­re­tary of State Sam Reed cer­ti­fied the elec­tion results of Ref­er­en­dum 74 on Wednes­day after­noon, and the law took effect at 12:01 a.m. Thurs­day. Same-sex cou­ples who pre­vi­ously were mar­ried in another state that allows gay mar­riage, like Mass­a­chu­setts, will not have to get remar­ried in Wash­ing­ton state. Their mar­riages became valid here as soon as the law took effect.

The ref­er­en­dum had asked vot­ers to either approve or reject the state law legal­iz­ing same-sex mar­riage that leg­is­la­tors passed ear­lier this year. That law was signed by Gre­goire in Feb­ru­ary but was put on hold pend­ing the out­come of the elec­tion. Nearly 54 per­cent of vot­ers approved the measure.

The law doesn’t require reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions or churches to per­form mar­riages, and it doesn’t sub­ject churches to penal­ties if they don’t marry gay or les­bian couples.

Mar­ried same-sex cou­ples will still be denied access to fed­eral pen­sions, health insur­ance and other gov­ern­ment ben­e­fits avail­able to het­ero­sex­ual cou­ples because the 1996 fed­eral Defense of Mar­riage Act, known as DOMA, bars fed­eral recog­ni­tion of gay unions.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Fri­day it will take up gay mar­riage some­time dur­ing the cur­rent term. Sev­eral pend­ing cases chal­lenge the fed­eral ben­e­fit pro­vi­sion of DOMA, and a sep­a­rate appeal asks the jus­tices to decide whether fed­eral courts were cor­rect in strik­ing down California’s Propo­si­tion 8, the amend­ment that out­lawed gay mar­riage after it had been approved by courts in the nation’s largest state.

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