Just engaged Jefferson Rougeau, left, and Steven Creps on the steps of the Pennsylvania state capitol on May 20, 2014. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Gay couples in Pennsylvania are rushing to get married before Republican Gov. Tom Corbett can challenge Tuesday’s federal court ruling striking down the state’s gay marriage ban, according to news reports.
County offices that issue marriage licenses are staying open late in Philadelphia. And the Pittsburgh office is taking applications online.
Joe Parisi, 30, and Steven Seminelli, 28, both of Philadelphia, hurried to get a license on Tuesday. “Yeah, we were texting each other from work and just said, ‘All right, we’ve got to jet out of work and get down here as soon as we can,’” Parisi told the Associated Press. “We didn’t want to take the chance of having this be challenged and missing out on our opportunity.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer caught up with Rue Landau and Kerry Smith:
They knew they wanted to be first, and they made sure of it. The two women made history Tuesday afternoon as they obtained a marriage license at City Hall after a federal judge struck down Pennsylvania’s ban on gay marriage. They were the first same-sex couple to get a marriage license in the state based on the ruling, according to the Pennsylvania ACLU, which represented the victorious plaintiffs. “We wanted to be first in line,” said Landau, 45, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.
Once they get a license, couples will have to wait three days to get married unless they can convince a judge to waive the waiting period.
Corbett could appeal the ruling in that short window, putting the decision on hold, but has not said whether he plans to do so. A spokesman for Corbett’s office told the AP it was reviewing the legal issues presented in the opinion. Corbett’s office defended Pennsylvania’s ban on gay marriage after Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane refused to.
In Idaho, gay couples’ opportunity to marry was taken away moments after it was granted last week when a U.S. district magistrate judge overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage. Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R) and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden immediately appealed the ruling. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court judge granted the request for a stay, forcing Idaho’s same-sex couples to postpone plans to marry.
Earlier this year, gay couples in Utah were left in limbo after the U.S. Supreme Court granted the state’s request for a stay while it appealed a court decision striking down a ban on same-sex unions passed by Utah voters in 2004. Pending resolution of the case, the state froze government benefits for couples who got married after the ban was struck down and before the stay was granted. The legal status of those marriages was called into question and no new marriage licenses have since been issued for same sex couples in Utah.
On Monday, a federal judge said Utah has to recognize more than 1,000 same-sex marriages that took place in the brief window between the ruling and the emergency stay. That state also has to un-freeze their benefits. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said in his decision that it was unacceptable to leave the couples in legal limbo regarding adoptions, government benefits and medical decisions.
“These legal uncertainties and lost rights cause harm each day that the marriage is not recognized,” Kimball wrote.
Utah has three weeks to appeal reinstatement of that decision to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, the same court that will consider the state’s appeal of the ruling striking down the state’s gay marriage ban.
Monday’s decision does not affect the pending decision on the constitutionality of Utah’s same-sex marriage ban.
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