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TechnoratiThousands of same-sex couples across the country applied for marriage licenses on Thursday, knowing they would be turned away.
(Photo: AP Images / Richard Drew)Matt Flanders, left center, and his partner Will Jennings, right center, of Brooklyn, N.Y., attempt to apply for a marriage license at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009. Hundreds of same-sex couples seeking to wed were turned away from the city marriage bureau Thursday, part of a nationwide protest aimed at recent decisions restricting the right to marry to a man and a woman.
Their actions were part of a nationwide demonstration coordinated by Marriage Equality USA, a gay rights group, to protest court and voters' decisions upholding traditional marriage.
The group, which declared Feb. 12 "National Freedom to Marry Day," said the protest was aimed at raising awareness of the harms and impact the inability to marry causes on their families. The protest is part of the 12th annual Freedom to Marry Week, designed to promote gay marriages.
Same-sex couples requested marriage licenses at their local County Clerk’s Offices, expecting to be denied but hoping to generate media coverage in the process.
Event information for a gay marriage protest in Philadelphia, Pa., instructed gay couples to "simply go into the marriage license office, apply for a marriage license and be DENIED." Protest organizers would then provide the couples with a "Marriage Denied" certificate and have a professional photographer take their portrait.
A lesbian couple in Arizona shocked participants when they were able to obtain a marriage license.
The two women filled out an application for a marriage license which was preprinted to state the groom is "male" and the bride is "female," reported The Arizona Daily Star. They then told the Pima County Clerk's office they were only swearing to the information they filled in, not the preprinted form itself.To their surprise, they were told that wouldn't be a problem.
Protesters in other states, however, were turned down when they sought a wedding license.
In Augusta, Maine, supporters of gay marriage gathered at the State House to deliver Valentine's Day cards to lawmakers, urging them to support a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state.
Some activists asked for multiple marriage licenses. In Orlando, Fla., ten gay and lesbian couples asked for a marriage license, a civil union license and a domestic partnership license before clerks at the Orange County Courthouse turned them down, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only two states to recognize same-sex marriage but other states are inching closer to legalizing the union.
Hawaii's House of Representatives approved on Thursday a measure to allow same-sex civil unions. The legislation now heads to the state's Senate Judiciary Committee.
In New York, same-sex marriages are not legal but Gov. David A. Paterson has issued a directive requiring that all state agencies recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
On Thursday, protesters carried signs that read "Just Not Married" as hundreds of gay couples were turned away from Manhattan's marriage bureau, according to Newsday.
In California, the state Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about the validity of Proposition 8, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage which voters passed during the November election. The High Court in California had legalized same-sex marriage months before the election.
Thursday marked the fifth anniversary of the first same-sex marriage in San Francisco. Over 4,000 same-sex couples received their marriage licenses in San Francisco in 2004. The state Supreme Court later declared the unions null and void. Some of the couples went to City Hall this week to show their gratitude to city clerks who married them. Continue »
