Advance Praise for America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage:

The United States is in the midst of an extraordinary but little-understood social revolution: the struggle to win legal recognition of same-sex marriages. Amidst a storm of passionate rhetoric, for and against, Daniel Pinello’s book compiles fascinating stories of real people who are being swept up in these struggles – including county clerks, state judges and legislators, activists and, most of all, gay and lesbian couples hoping to win new standing in the eyes of their fellow citizens and American law. A lawyer and political scientist, Pinello provides keen insight into the still-emerging legal and political issues. But he keeps his focus on the human beings for whom this issue matters so much. A truly illuminating book.

– Professor Rogers M. Smith, University of Pennsylvania

In America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage, Dan Pinello brings the issue to life by showing us the people behind the headlines and the way that the issue affected public officials, couples who were allowed to dream of marriage for at least a season, and churches that mobilized to defend their idea of marriage. This is a book full of drama, but it is also full of useful detail on the workings of state and local governments as they grapple with moral policy. The universe of highly readable books with serious pedagogical value is quite small. This is a book that I will assign to undergraduate students with confidence that they will read for both enjoyment and education.

– Professor Clyde Wilcox, Georgetown University

America’s Struggle for Same Sex Marriage

Cambridge University Press

Published May 2006

Daniel R. Pinello

dpinello@jjay.cuny.edu

© Daniel R. Pinello 2006

Chapter 1

Introduction

            Victoria Dunlap was in a dither. Someone called her office with a question she couldn’t answer: Would she issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples?

            In 2000, Dunlap was elected as the first Republican to the office of clerk of Sandoval County, New Mexico, in more than 40 years. With the motto “Unity Through Diversity,” she campaigned as a reformer. The 30-year incumbent clerk was leaving because of terms limits and had handpicked her chief deputy to succeed her.

            But Dunlap sensed a political opportunity, because the clerk’s office was tinged with allegations of cronyism and corruption. Clerks run local elections in New Mexico, and the Sandoval County incumbent, employing questionable redistricting maneuvers, was accused of having thwarted people seeking public office. Moreover, her shop was under a consent decree regarding the supervision of Native American voting. Spending less than $1,000, while designing and painting her own campaign signs, Dunlap beat the chief deputy in a close election, with absentee ballots determining the outcome.

            Dunlap and her husband have two children. An artist by trade, she sold her first painting at the age of 17 and has a history of questioning the social and political order. As a high school student in Salt Lake City, she circulated a petition against the closing of local parks on the sabbath. The first real taste of politics came when she had to speak at a public forum on the Sandoval County schools. Her son had Attention Deficit Disorder and was in a special education program with a particularly skillful teacher. But her house was redistricted away from that school, and Dunlap fought for her child to stay there under an open enrollment bill. She also had been a Crime Watch activist and worked on EPA-regulated road-building projects.

            Dunlap became a Republican because the party’s local operatives were the most reliable in helping her solve problems and because she admired New Mexico’s progressive Republican Governor, Gary Johnson, who promoted the decriminalization of drugs.

            Once in office, Dunlap sought to modernize the operation. A big project was the digitizing of 1.8 million documents that the clerk maintains. She also mandated that her staff abide by the strict rule of law and find out the correct answers to questions that constituents asked.

            So, in mid-February 2004, when a staff person received the question about same-sex marriage, it was forwarded to David Mathews, the county attorney, for an answer. Mathews’ reply quoted state statutes (“Each couple desiring to marry in New Mexico shall obtain a license from the County Clerk and file the same for recording in the County issuing the license, following the marriage ceremony”) and noted that the only gender-specific part of New Mexico marriage law was the application form created in 1961 (referring to the “male applicant” and the “female applicant”). The memo concluded with a suggestion to seek an opinion from the state attorney general.

            Yet Dunlap’s attempts to clarify New Mexico’s marriage law were frustrated, as she explained:

            I pulled the law, which I do frequently. And I couldn’t find [a prohibition of same-sex marriage] either. So I tried to make contacts with people that did know. I called the U.S. Attorney’s office. I contacted Josh Akers at the Albuquerque Journal and asked him if he could get a hold of the Governor. I called a contact in the state Senate.

            The Secretary of State is generally one I can get answers from, because they’re directly above me. They said that there was really nothing that they could do. People weren’t responding to anything. This was almost like I had turned invisible. No one wanted to touch this.

            Josh Akers couldn’t get a hold of the Governor. I asked him to contact anybody he could, including the Attorney General, whatever it takes. I can’t ask for requests in writing from the Attorney General with this administration. I could with the prior administration. I think they changed policy or something. It has to be a legislator that makes requests. So you ask legislators.

            And I’m frantically trying to find somebody that will figure this out for me. But nobody wants to go there with this one. And I’m a Republican. If I ask a Democrat senator, they’re not even gonna . . . . This state's so political. They’ll just turn you off or maybe they’ll set you up.

            Dunlap sought an answer from other government officials for several days, but to no avail:

            The U.S. Attorney’s office was trying their best to help me out. They were the ones that were doing the most. But they said it wasn’t within their jurisdiction. I thought maybe they could give me some leads.

            But the time was coming where I knew that, if we had another call. . . . We really needed to figure this out. We were gonna have to do it. I was not gonna prevent someone from coming in here and getting a marriage license when they were obviously allowed to do so – at the point when I know that it’s against the law to not allow someone a marriage license, ya know whatta mean? Then I must do it. I’m gonna always give them their rights.

            So I had to make a decision, and I made a decision at that point. No one wanted to respond to it. I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t know why they’re doing this. But I'm not gonna be responsible for denying anyone their rights. How was I to know that there weren’t gonna be hundreds of people that were gonna be asking? I thought probably because of this thing that was going on in our country, they would be hitting all the county clerks.

            I also had contact with the president of the association of clerks. He said the clerks had gotten together at one time or another, about ten years ago, and decided that they weren’t gonna issue these licenses, based upon the application. I said, “An application does not the law make. We can’t deny people rights based on an application.” He said there was an Attorney General’s opinion at one time. I said, “Where is that?” “I don’t know. It’s around here somewhere.” I said, “That’s a permanent record. You’re not allowed to destroy an Attorney General’s opinion. I need it by Friday. Because by Friday, I will be issuing licenses.” He said, “If I get it by Friday, will you stop?” “If it’s the proper opinion, certainly. I just need clarification.” Friday came around, and nothing. I didn’t hear anything from anybody.

            Dunlap decided to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on February 20, and Joshua Akers broke the story to the media:

            I’ve always relied on the press, because they educate people. Evidently, Josh got with the AP to spread the word. And then we had all this thing happen.

            I told him, “I’m gonna separate the men from the boys here. I wanna know who’s for this and who’s against it. And I wanna know who’s brave enough to stand up and say they are. Because I'm tired of politics.”

            These are the people I serve. It’s not the politicians. I need to know because I’m in the trenches here. We daily work with people. I could be the one needing the marriage license. Doesn’t it mean anything to anybody? I have empathy for people. But no, it’s all about politics. So I did it. And we had a great response.

            Sandoval County has a population just under 100,000 people. Its clerk’s office, in the backwater county seat of Bernalillo, some 15 miles northwest of Albuquerque, usually issues no more than 50 marriage licenses per month. But February was different. On Friday, the 20^th, 64 same-sex couples got marriage licenses.

            It was a one-day opportunity for New Mexico’s lesbian and gay community. Too many people wanted to shut Dunlap down:

            I had so many people trying to manipulate me that day. I had all these people on the telephone constantly, calling from all over the country. I was astounded. And I’m really very low key. I just like to get my job done and get out.

            I had the Republican Party call me, and they were begging me to stop. I had the [county] commissioners begging me to stop. The chair sent me a memo and wanted to have this special meeting. They wanted to take responsibility for stopping me.

            Both of them thought they knew it was against the law. Can you believe this? This is what I dealt with. Both of them thought that it wasn’t lawful what I was doing. The unwritten law. You know, the honor-among-thieves kind of thing.

            So they wanted to take responsibility for that. And since the Republicans wanna be like the Democrats, and the Democrats aren’t about to let the Republicans win, I was being jerked around all day long, as to who was gonna make Victoria Dunlap stop. The Republican Party state chair called me and asked me to stop. “If we get an opinion for you, and you do stop, will you say that we . . . .” It was like when these terrorists drop bombs and then they take responsibility. And I had to wheel and deal through that all day long.

            Here were all these gay people that were so happy, and I was in a complete and total dither.

Craig and Greg

            Greg usually glances at the Albuquerque Journal online every morning. On February 20^th, Joshua Akers’ headline, “Sandoval County to Allow Same-Sex Nuptials,” surprised him. Greg, 49, couldn’t believe it was true. He telephoned the clerk’s office to confirm the information, and then said to his partner, “Craig, the county clerk in Sandoval County is issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.” Without a moment’s hesitation, Craig, 47, replied, “Let’s go!”

            Craig and Greg met on a New York City street. Their relationship, although delayed, seemed fated. Both moved to New York in 1980, but didn’t connect until ten years later. Craig was walking his Jack Russell terrier puppy and crossed paths with Greg, who was walking his Jack Russell terrier puppy. The two dogs were ecstatic to see each other and acted like they were long-lost friends. Indeed they were. They came from the same litter. Craig and Greg independently purchased the dogs from the same Connecticut breeder.

            The two moved in together a year later, relocated to Los Angeles for a few years, and then returned to the New York area. Greg worked in advertising and taught school, but was most passionate about architecture and real estate. Craig is a librarian. Missing the West, the two looked for a less discovered city there and chose Albuquerque as a good opportunity: “When you leave the Northeast, you have some equity in your house, and you do well then in New Mexico, because the cost of living here is much less.”

            Craig and Greg made their first pass at marriage during the 1994 lesbian and gay March on Washington:

            There was a ceremony in front of the Treasury Building, a mass marriage on its steps. It had no legal weight. It was symbolic, to represent that this was one more thing that’s being denied us.

            It was Greg and I and a thousand lesbians. I just remember being surrounded by women, without another male couple in sight.

            Their second brush with marriage brought a sense of déjà vu. They drove the 15 miles to Bernalillo early that Friday morning and found three lesbian couples in line at the Sandoval County Clerk’s Office. Craig and Greg were the first male couple to apply for a marriage license in New Mexico.

            Getting the license was just the beginning:

            Greg: After we got the license, we had to get married. As soon as I got home, I called the Unitarian Church, because that’s the only church I knew that might marry a same-sex couple.

            Craig: We really knew that something was going to happen to stop this. We were not that naïve. So we wanted to have the ceremony and get the document back to be recorded as quickly as possible. This was Friday, and we wanted to be there Monday at nine o’clock to get the paperwork back. So there we were suddenly, with two days to find someone to perform a marriage.

            Greg: That night, Basic Rights New Mexico [an organization formed in 2002 to fight a prospective ballot initiative seeking to overturn a 2001 state law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation] jumped on it and set up a meeting at their office space for all the couples who got married. Someone called and told me about it, and we went there that night. When we got there, we found a minister who performed the ceremony. There were probably 30 couples there.

            Craig: So we got married in this room basically full of total strangers. People were photographing it and videotaping it. It was so surreal and bizarre.

            Greg: And it was very emotional. I think the emotion was probably just the shock that it was actually happening.

            Craig: And so fast!

            Greg: Even though I had gotten to the point where I felt that we should be able to get married, I figured it was going to be years away.

            Craig: And if it had been legal earlier, I can tell you the way we got married wouldn’t have been the way that I would have done it. I would have wanted at least one person I knew to be present.

            Craig and Greg’s marriage certificate was indeed recorded early the next week at the Sandoval County Clerk’s Office, and it appears they are legally married under New Mexico law. They mused about what being married meant to them:

            Craig: We’ve never wanted to have a church wedding and wear tuxedos. That’s really not us at all. I’ve never had this lifelong dream to see myself in the church and all that. So I’ve never really felt that I was cheated out of any of that, because I never wanted it.

            We’ve been together for 13 years. Our bank accounts are all together. We’ve owned many properties in both our names. We’ve shared benefits. Our wills are written up. We have powers of attorney for each other for health purposes. So we’ve done all the papers and all the documents and all of that.

            But that being said, you still don’t really feel safe as a couple. Because you feel at some point, you may just be at the mercy of some person who’s against us as gay people, that may not allow me to see him in the hospital or make a decision for him or whatever.

            Greg: I have been putting a lot of thought into the whole marriage issue and talking to people. Some would say, “Civil unions, maybe. But I don’t know. I just can’t see same-sex marriage.” Well, why? You know, the whole thing.

            So then I started thinking to myself about domestic partnerships, civil unions, and all of that, and the ways that can give me a lot of the things I may be looking for. But also wondering how it plays into this whole psychology.

            I have a cousin, a kind of activist lesbian in Connecticut. She was saying something about her father is okay with civil unions but not marriage, and she just knows it's because he’s a goddamn bigot and is just antigay and all of this stuff. But that’s his position. And that’s kind of where I was going in my own thought process.

            But you know what? Anything less than marriage really isn’t enough. If civil union has all the benefits – every single one – that marriage gives you, it’s still a different word. It’s a different psychological thing. As gay people, we are not the same. We’re different. We’re less. Even if they try to make them the same, it’s still the perception of having less. So the psychology of that was already brewing. And then when the Massachusetts court decision was rendered and that language was used [“The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.”], I was like, “Yes! That’s it!”

            Craig: One thing that started miffing us off is that we only have one word for it – marriage. I think it would make it easier if we realized that we’re talking about many things here. Marriage is a legal contract that two people can enter into. Now if they want to go and call that civil unions for everybody, that’s what they should do.

            Then if marriage refers to observing your religious beliefs, we have no problem with that. But when you say marriage, people don’t realize it’s all of these things tied together. It's the religious, it's the secular, the civil, the legal, all those things.

            It suddenly hit us, it’s really time for this to be straightened out. The United States is not supposed to be led by religious beliefs. If a church doesn’t want to recognize a marriage between two men or between a white woman and a black man, that’s fine within their religious beliefs. But from the governmental point of view, that distinction should not be made. It’s between two adults who want to enter into this legal contract.

            Greg: At one point, my brother even said to me, “Well, I don’t think the Catholic Church should be required to marry gay people.” And I said, “They don’t have to! It’s a church. They can marry whoever they want.”

            Craig: Catholics don’t even believe in divorcing people. And that’s a good analogy, flipping it over to divorce. A Catholic cannot get divorced within the Church. But that doesn’t stop Catholics from getting a civil divorce and ending their marriage. According to their beliefs, if they still want to think they’re spiritually tied, that’s fine. But that has nothing to do in my mind with the legal aspect of terminating a marriage.

Peg and Spence

            I’m a good Catholic girl. I was born and raised here [in Santa Fe, New Mexico]. I come from a very old family here, of Hispanic descent. Our family is very well established. I’m the oldest of three children.

            My first career was as a social worker also. I dealt with children who had been abused and neglected. I did that in northern New Mexico, north of Santa Fe. Then I moved into social work administration. We opened the first adolescent treatment center in northern New Mexico for teenagers dealing with alcohol and drug abuse.

            And that’s where I met Peg. I hired her. Convenient. I didn’t have to go out and beat the bushes. We interviewed more than a hundred people. As I reviewed her application, I knew that we'd be together from that point on. Swear to God. Intuition.

            Spence, 54, is an attorney today and worked as a criminal prosecutor for 12 years before turning to civil practice, first with the State of New Mexico, now with the City of Santa Fe. She found out at work about Victoria Dunlap’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples:

            Every morning, I routinely get on the Internet and check all three television stations to see if there’s something in the news that might affect the City of Santa Fe. When I clicked on the CBS affiliate here [on February 20^th], I saw it. I called Peg and said, “You’re not going to believe what’s happening in Sandoval County. They’re issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. What do you think?” We were like, “Ooohh. Let’s go!”

            We tried to think what to do when you plan a wedding, and stuff like that. Peg said, “When can you go?” I told her I was in court and couldn’t get out until 1:30. So I met Peg at home at about 1:45.

            We drove fast to Sandoval County. I didn’t even know where the courthouse was. We looked for it and didn’t see a whole lot of cars where we parked. I was afraid they'd already stopped. So we went into the courthouse and didn’t see anything. We asked where you get marriage licenses, and they pointed upstairs.

            Going up, we saw two gay guys coming down. They were carrying roses, and we asked them where to go. They said, “Upstairs,” and gave us their roses, because we didn’t have any flowers. We kept them. It was very sweet.

            There was this long line of people upstairs. We were like, “Whoa!”

            Peg: Very jubilant. Very high energy.

            Spence: It was unbelievable what was going on. The excitement. The happiness.

            There were probably a hundred people or so in line when we got there, anywhere from 40 to 50 couples ahead of us. It was probably about 2:30 or 2:45.

            It took forever. I felt so bad because everyone was so happy and excited, and I didn’t want to put a damper on it by telling them, “You guys don’t understand. You better move” [waving her hands in a “get along” gesture]. We were so afraid that somebody would walk in [and close it down]. It was awful. We were in line for about an hour.

            Peg: There were a couple of ministers on the courthouse lawn doing marriages right off the bat. [Our minister] was the friend of two other lesbians we knew in line. They are Jewish and were going to be married by a rabbi. We knew that the [New Mexico] Attorney General was going to shut it down very quickly. So we were in a hurry.

            The minister came over, and the four of us had a double ceremony, for time’s sake. She married the four of us together. We sprinted back into the courthouse to get it registered before Patricia Madrid, the Attorney General, shut it down. And we made it by five minutes.

            When we first got in line, people were getting the license part and then getting married. And everybody was just screaming and cheering. But when we came out [of the courthouse for the last time], no one was hollering, because at least 50 couples had just been turned away.

            Spence: And they had been jubilant. Just jubilant. And there were couples ahead of us who had their marriage licenses and were going off to plan huge weddings. They just figured that whenever they came back, they would record it.

            Peg: Just like regular folk do. Straight folk go down, you get your license, you plan a wedding for June, you have a marriage, you sign it, and take it back or mail it to the courthouse, and they register it.

            There was a couple in line behind us, who took our picture. We said to them, “Get married now. Get married right now. Get married right now.” Then they decided to get married on the lawn, but were waiting for their teenage daughter and lolly-gaggling around. And they didn’t get registered, because it was shut down.

            Peg and Spence elaborated on the Sandoval County experience:

            Peg: Being married, for me, is a spiritual piece, a commitment. The standing up in front of . . . . In fact, I was bemoaning that, of course, we couldn’t grab our kids out of school. [In 1994, the couple adopted two siblings: a boy, three, and a girl, six.] We didn’t have the time. I regretted that we had to rush and get married. Because what our marriage should have been about was inviting all of our friends and family to stand with us and honor this commitment that we have made for the past 23 years. So I made it into a spiritual event, especially with the minister doing it for us there, quickly, in less than five minutes, on the lawn.

            I was kind of upset with Spence and the other two women we got married with. We went out to get a drink later. And all they were talking about was the political side of it. And I went, “People, take a breath. We just got married. We just got married. Look at this side of it.” They blew me off completely. Still, it would be more important to me to be married in a church than it would be by a piece of dirt called the State of New Mexico. I’d still like to have something like that happen for the two of us.

            I don’t know if it’s changed anything for us. If Spence had an accident in Oklahoma and was in an ICU, and if our marriage convinced some doctor or nurse that I should be next to her, then yeah, let me be a part of that. Of course, they’d have to call the sheriff anyway to keep me out. I wouldn’t be leaving. They’d have to call security guards to pull me kicking and screaming out of an ICU, if she were laying there on the bed dying. That’s what this is about.

            There’s also a poignant story from the time when Spence worked for the State of New Mexico. She had cancer then. I work for the State as well and hold a family health insurance policy. If Spence were a man, I wouldn’t have even had to pay another dime. He would have been a part of the family policy.

            Because of the circumstance of the cancer, Spence felt that she had to continue working, to keep the insurance for herself. All throughout her chemotherapy, she couldn’t go on leave because we would’ve had to pay $300 a month for COBRA. So during chemotherapy, she was working full time.

            I’m considering changing employment now, but I carry the insurance for our family. So that’s a big consideration. How does Spence get insurance?

            Spence: [A local reporter] interviewed me for an article and asked questions about what it felt like [in Sandoval County]. And I tried explaining what it was like to be at the courthouse. Then I said to him, “You can’t even begin to imagine the types of emotions individuals were experiencing, because you [as a straight man] don’t even have to have a second thought about being able to get married. To you, it’s ordinary. To have something offered to gay people that they thought could never, ever be available, and all of a sudden, it was there. The emotions that were unleashed in Sandoval County were building up for centuries, from all the generations before us.”

Gordon and Jeff

            Gordon and Jeff live in a small town outside of Santa Fe and are both college administrators. A lesbian couple driving to Sandoval County on February 20^th telephoned Jeff, 40, to say that he and Gordon, 50, should jump in their car and get married. The two men weren’t able to leave until the afternoon and described what happened in Bernalillo:

            Gordon: We had been there for about two hours, had wound our way through this long line, and were the third couple in line when the decision was made to shut it down.

            The media were a little disappointed because they wanted some sort of TV moment. Instead, what they got was a very quiet, “OK, we knew this was going to happen. Sixty-some couples got through, and that’s the plus. Now we’re one step closer to where we want to be in this country. And that’s a good thing.” It was very orderly. There was one woman who yelled and screamed about its being unfair and wanted to excite the couples in line. But everybody was like, “This is the decision. We’re a peaceful, gentle people.”

            Jeff: There was a lot of very visible disappointment. People were crying. All kinds of stuff. But there wasn’t any riot.

            Gordon: People just heard it, were hurt, stunned. They didn’t leave for a long time because they kept hoping that some other outcome or interpretation would be forthcoming in a short time. And when it became clear that, no, it was really the end, people just went back to their cars.

            Now the gay people who got married are the married couples. And people who were in line and disappointed are referred to [in New Mexico] as “the engaged.” We are the third engaged.

            Jeff: When we left for Sandoval County, our feeling was that we’ve been together 19 years, we know what our commitment is to each other, and that this was just going to be something to go through to get this piece of paper. We really weren’t emotionally connected with the idea of getting married. We hadn’t thought about marriage. We never thought that we would see it in our lifetime. And so it hadn’t really sunk in yet.

            Then when we were in line, we just really formed this emotional attachment to the idea of marriage. Yes, this is something we deserve. And yes, we’ve worked hard for this. And why is our relationship less valid than that of a straight couple who have known each other for three days or three hours and can go to Las Vegas and get married?

            Gordon: I was upset in January with the State of the Union address by President Bush and really angry at him. Then, when we added the emotional component . . . . Because it took the Sandoval County experience for me to say, “Now wait a minute. I am worthy. This is something important.” There are all these other legal issues tied to marriage that domestic partnership doesn’t solve, civil unions don’t solve, all our legal paperwork doesn’t even solve. Because we have wills, living wills, the whole nine yards. But it still doesn’t handle lots of stuff.

            Jeff: After the disappointment of being shut out [in Sandoval County], we talked about the issue on the drive home. The only other place at that point where gay people could get married was San Francisco. So we said, let’s just do it. Marriage does mean something to us.

            At home, we opened a bottle of champagne and toasted each other for getting as far as we did. Then we got online that night and booked a trip to San Francisco. We were planning on getting married on March 12^th, which was a Friday. We were flying in on March 11^th and flying back out on Saturday. So it was just going to be two days.

            The Monday after booking the flight, we found out that you had to have an appointment in San Francisco in order to get married.

            Gordon: They were tired of the lines outside City Hall with thousands of people.

            Jeff: I saw the new procedure on the San Francisco web site, to call this number. We called for two days straight, sitting at work, just hitting redial, redial, redial. The line was busy for two days straight. We finally got through. I said, “I want to make an appointment for the 12^th.” “That day is booked.” “What is the latest you have on Thursday, the day before?” “The latest we have is a one o’clock.” “We’re flying into Oakland at ten o’clock. Can we get there in time? Because we’re not familiar with the area.” “Yeah, I think so. Oops! Somebody just booked the one o’clock. Well, I have noon now.” “Book it! Just book it!” So he booked us at noon.

            Gordon: Now we had less than two hours to get from the Oakland Airport to City Hall in San Francisco. That’ll teach us to ask questions!

            Jeff: A friend from college lives in Oakland, and I called her to ask if she could coordinate the trip to downtown San Francisco. And she was amazing. She had scouts in the airport to greet us. “Go this way! Go this way!” And she looped around the circle in front of the airport, pulled up, we jumped in, and she took off.

            Gordon: She knew every shortcut between the Oakland airport and City Hall that there could possibly be.

            Jeff: So she “got us to the church on time.”

            Gordon: She got us there so early that we had time to go to a taqueria for our wedding rehearsal dinner.

            When we did the ceremony, it was an emotion-packed event. From the minute we walked in, I started filling up. Then, when they brought the flowers, that just sent me over the edge.

            Jeff: People from all over the world were donating money for flowers for the same-sex newlyweds in San Francisco. So they had this huge basket that was full of beautiful flowers for us.

            Gordon: It was assorted bouquets, and each was in a different color scheme. It was so amazing. The card just said, “To a loving couple.” They were all anonymous. It was incredible to think of all these people who wanted to participate and be there in some way. So they were just sending money, and it was so thoughtful because we were an hour and a half off of a plane.

            Then the ceremony was so profound and wonderful. We heard words that we’ve heard in movies and on TV a thousand times – “And now, by the power invested in me by the . . . .” – but to hear them said to us . . . . Tears were rolling down my face. I couldn’t find my voice. Jeff started crying because he saw how upset I was.

            Jeff: That got me going.

            Gordon: The deputy commissioner of marriages, who does this all day long, started crying. We had to stop the ceremony so that he could find his voice again. It was just incredible.

            One of the things we keep saying about all the gay marriages is that, unlike our straight friends who are having a celebration of what’s in front of them, we have all the emotions and all the weight of our lives together. So we’re celebrating what’s in front of us, but we’re bringing to that 19 years behind us, too, that we’re honoring and respecting, and acknowledging that commitment and time together.

            Returning home to New Mexico, Gordon and Jeff wanted to share the news of their wedding celebration with friends and family:

            Jeff: I sent a wedding announcement to my hometown newspaper, in a very rural county of Maryland. The publisher of the paper refused to print it, saying it wasn’t legally recognized in Maryland. A young, emboldened editor decided instead, if they’re not going to print the wedding announcement, they’ll do a feature story on us. So he ran a page and a half story with seven photographs.

            The couple also mused about the American political environment:

            Jeff: It’s frustrating that some people say that the right of gay people to marry needs to be put before the American people to vote on. It’s only fair, they say, that the people get to voice their opinion. That kind of thing.

            There were more people against interracial marriage decades ago than there are against gay marriage right now. But that didn’t stop the Supreme Court from striking down laws banning interracial marriage [in Loving v. Virginia (1967)]. You don’t make social progress by letting everybody vote on it.

            Gordon: I was in Arizona when that state voted on the Martin Luther King holiday. And the country was outraged that people would vote against such an obviously worthwhile holiday.

            What I always remind folks is, not only did Arizona vote against a Martin Luther King holiday, but it was the only state that had a popular vote on a Martin Luther King holiday. People in other states shouldn’t be so cocky about how their citizens might have fallen on that question.

            It wasn’t until later, when Arizona lost the Super Bowl and there were other economic repercussions against the state, that they had to rethink and revisit that decision.

Aftermath

            At the request of state senators, New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, a Democrat, issued an expedited advisory letter on February 20^th that cited the 1961 application form and several New Mexico matrimonial statutes and court cases that refer to a “husband” and a “wife.” Madrid concluded that, “Thus, it appears that the present policy of New Mexico is to limit marriage to a man and a woman” and that “[N]o county clerk should issue a marriage license to same-sex couples because those licenses would be invalid under current law.”

            On February 23^rd, the Sandoval County Commission voted to allow all same-sex couples who received licenses on February 20^th to register their marriages with the clerk’s office.

            At the request of the Sandoval County Commission and Attorney General Madrid, a state district judge signed a restraining order against Victoria Dunlap prohibiting her from issuing further marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That order remained in effect until the expiration of Dunlap’s term as county clerk at the end of 2004, to which office she did not seek reelection.

            The Sandoval County Republican Central Committee formally censured Dunlap, stating that she had “brought disgrace to the party as a whole.” The committee’s chairman noted before the vote, “Other than assassination, all we can do is censure her” (Akers 2004).

            In March 2004, Paul Becht, a former Republican state senator, fundamentalist Christian, and New Mexico legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, an evangelical Christian group, threatened to sue if the Sandoval County marriage licenses weren’t nullified. “The problem I have with same-sex marriage is it denigrates the whole idea of marriage. Living together and having sex together is not the definition of marriage,” Becht said (McGivern 2004).

            After her term as Sandoval County Clerk expired, Victoria Dunlap and her family moved to Ohio.

New Mexico as Introduction

            How did same-sex marriage come to an obscure county of an out-of-the-way state? That turn of events depended in part on the presence of an unusual person as the clerk of the unsung county. But it also relied on the New Mexico lesbian and gay couples who prompted the clerk’s action.

            The Sandoval County experience with same-sex marriage serves as a primer for the country’s battles over the policy in the first decade of the 21^st century. A nongay public official made marriage licenses available to lesbian and gay couples, and they in turn flocked to take advantage of the opportunity. A political backlash ensued in other government branches, seeking to reestablish the prohibition of same-sex couples from the institution of marriage.

            Parallels are suggested between gay people’s fight for marriage rights and the African-American civil rights struggle and other social movements in American history. Religious and social conservatives deny that marriage for lesbian and gay couples is a legitimate civil rights claim and point toward a natural-law definition of marriage as between only one man and one woman.

            This book explores these and other issues surrounding America's struggle over same-sex marriage. The research provides an insider account of how courts, politicians, and activists maneuver and deal with a cutting-edge social policy issue, as well as real-life narratives about everyday people whom the debate immediately affects.

References

Akers, Joshua. 2004. “GOP Says Sandoval Clerk ‘A Disgrace.’” Albuquerque Journal, April 21.

Loving v. Virginia. 1967. 388 U.S. 1.

McGivern, Tim. 2004. “Defining Marriage.” Alibi, March 11-March 17.