It's noon on gay marriage day in D.C., and Manni Baez and Travis Romshak are pretty much at the end of the line. They got here around 10:3 a.m.; they expect to be waiting for another hour or two before it's their turn to enter the Marriage Bureau and file their paperwork. If they're lucky. [...]
Devin Crock, 29, is from Virginia. He would never move back there. "Virginia is actually moving backwards," Crock says of the home state he abandoned for D.C. five years ago. Today, he and partner Chris McLaurin, 23, are inching slowly forward in a long line of same-sex couples looking to secure a marriage license in the [...]
Nichole Beavers and Stephanie Outlaw might be the youngest people waiting for their marriage license today. Beavers is only 19; Outlaw, 20. But the couple's wedding plans are hardly immature. "We didn't think it would actually come true this soon," says Beavers. "We planned this all out two-and-a-half years ago."
It's the debut of gay marriage in Washington, D.C., and the first batch of couples to snake through the D.C. Superior Court Marriage Bureau are ready to step in front of the cameras. But first, they've got to be coached on how to exit the building. Sultan Shakir, organizer for the Campaign for All D.C. [...]
This line is nothing compared to the White House Easter Egg Roll of 2006. Four years ago, Terrance Heath and Richard Imirowicz waited in line overnight, in the snow and the freezing cold, in order to secure tickets for their son, now 7, to roll some eggs on the White House lawn. Imirowicz had come [...]
Sinjoyla Townsend and Angelisa Young are holding gay marriage's golden ticket—a commemorative place-holder signifying that they are officially the first same-sex couple to file their application for marriage in the District of Columbia. The couple strolled into D.C. Superior Court this morning at 6 a.m., expecting to file in behind a mass of waiting couples. [...]
Today marks the first day that the District's same-sex couples can apply for marriage licenses. I'll be down at the courthouse liveblogging the lovers and the fighters.
UPDATES:
Tomorrow, Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church will be protesting the first day of same-sex marriage in the District. Why? Well, because "God hates fags! God hates fag-enablers! Ergo, God hates District of Columbia, all of DOOMED america, and the World! You've turned the country over to the fags; now your [...]
The Archdiocese of Washington has been battling the D.C. government for the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians since D.C.'s same-sex marriage legislation got rolling last year.
One major point of contention: Once gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, the Archdiocese—which employs plenty of locals through Catholic Charities—will be required to provide health benefits [...]
Given the ambivalent history of same-sex marriage in this country—in 2008, gays in California only had a five-month window to get hitched before their newly-minted rights were revoked—many gay couples are understandably eager to redeem their marriage rights at their earliest convenience. If you're one of those gays, Mike Newman is your guy.
