SALT LAKE CITY — A day after a judge’s surprise ruling overturned Utah’s same-sex marriage ban, at least one county clerk intended to open early Saturday to issue licenses.
About 40 minutes north of Salt Lake City, about 300 hundred people showed up at the Weber County Clerk’s Office on Saturday afternoon but were later turned away without marriage licenses.
Clerk Ricky Hatch apologized and said that county officials had told him that opening for special circumstances may violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection. Hatch told The Associated Press he was also told the county’s standard security requirements were not in place for a Saturday opening.
The confusion Saturday and reports of other crowds scrambling to find an open office illustrated how gay marriage caught many in Utah off guard.
On Friday, more than 100 couples rushed to wed in Salt Lake County shortly after the ruling was released. State officials slammed the decision and moved to stop licenses from being issued.
The state has given notice that it will appeal the ruling and has asked for an emergency stay to stop gay couples from getting marriage licenses.
It’s unclear whether or when a judge would grant the stay. Legal experts say that even if a stay is granted in the coming days, the licenses that have already been issued will likely still be valid.
For now, a state considered as one of the most conservative in the nation, has joined the likes of California and New York to become the 18th state where same-sex couples can legally wed.
Utah is home to the Mormon church, which was one of the leading forces behind California’s short-lived ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, which voters approved in 2008.
“For something like this to happen in Utah is mind-boggling,” Nathan London said Saturday as he and his boyfriend planned their wedding. “I’m sure they’re going to fight it tooth-and-nail.”
What a shock! I can’t help but smile over same-sex marriage being affirmed in Utah. Of all the states where people absolutely have strong opinions about such things! I am sure appeals have been files before the ink was dry on the initial court ruling.
Will this ruling open the door for the LDS fundamentalists who practice plural marriage? Right now, plural marriage is illegal and has been for about the past 125 years. In fact, its illegality was a condition for Utah statehood.
It’s hard to understand how there can be plural marriages and yet no one goes to jail for it. That is because only the first marriage is a state sanctioned marriage. The subsequent marriages are ecclesiastical marriages only recognized in the fundamentalist church. To the rest of the world, it is merely shacking up, to use an antequated expression. Many who practice polygamy would like to see state sanctioned polygamy. They are probably cheering the same-sex marriage affirmation simply because it opens a door to legitimatizing plural marriage. The key words to watch for are marriage between “one man and one woman.” Weakening any part of the qualifiers will give polygamists an edge they did not have before.
This will be an interesting development. Definitely Utah will be one of the states to watch as court after court rules in favor of same sex marriage as a civil rights issue. Keep an eye on Virginia also. Virginia has denied the right for same sex couples to file jointly on their state income tax returns. That is a court challenge looking for a place to happen.
I can’t help but smile….Utah is heavily Mormon and I can’t think of a place I would rather not be if I were gay. Heavy sanctions against something that occurs in nature.
No comments. What do you all think will happen? Will this case to go the Supremes? Will same sex marriage be sanctioned by them?
To bring this closer to home, can anyone posit a theory that can save Virginia’s constitutional amendment banning civil unions and same-sex marriage from being invalidated on constitutional grounds. That one was dead on arrival the day it was passed, I think.