Yes, I am aware this is one of the selfies I already posted in Part 1, which was about our quest for a marriage license in December of 2013. I tried the last couple of days to find our photos from the hasty ceremony that day, but I couldn’t locate them. I’m sure the pictures are safe on a memory card in a phone about 4 phones ago—in a storage bin somewhere in the garage. It’s tangled in a ball of useless old phones and old phone chargers we don’t dare get rid of. It’s where obsolete phones and their accessories go to die. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few elephants have wandered off to die there, as well. Seriously, we have a little bit of everything in our garage—except my new truck. No room at the truck inn.
Part 1 of this tale took us all the way from Millard County, through Juab County, and eventually to the office of the county clerk in Utah county—where we were given paperwork to fill out to get a marriage license, and after we had filled out the application, we were then told the Utah County Clerk would not be issuing licenses to same-sex couples, despite the law demanding he do so. Maybe it’s just me, but I think we should have been told the county wouldn’t issue us a marriage license BEFORE we were given the paperwork to complete. In addition to the simple illegality and rudeness of the office, we were also in a hurry to get married before a hearing that morning could possibly end in a stay of the marriages. Time was of the essence.
We headed off again on I-15, to try to obtain a license in another county ASAP. Suzanne drove, and I regularly posted updates on Facebook for friends and family—about where we were on our journey and what was going on. If I didn’t update our status in a timely manner, I got texts asking me to. We had a little posse of support behind us, cheering us on. It was pleasantly unexpected. We had no idea how many folks were hoping for us to succeed in our mission. We strategically decided to not even try our luck in Salt Lake City, because we knew the lines of people doing the same thing we were doing were long, long, long. Ain’t nobody got time for that! I mean—we were racing the clock.
We decided to keep going north, into Davis County—which happened to be our home county anyway. We were not particularly hopeful this would end well for us. We showed up at the Davis County Clerk’s office in Farmington with fingers and toes crossed. My friends, I still cannot believe how we were welcomed with open arms by everyone in the office. There were a lot of couples there, and the county staff knew we were all trying to beat the possible stay which could be the outcome of the hearing—in effect, shutting down the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I’m sure there were extra workers there, anticipating the crowd. Watching the office workers’ well organized assembly line of various legal forms was like watching one of those Rube Goldberg chain reactions where you push one marble which rolls through tubes, across tiny bridges, under a toy train car, down a miniature water tower, and so on, you finally end up with a contraption-made slice of bread on a plate. The office workers happily helped expedite us through the entire bureaucratic process. They weren’t stuffy or standoffish. They shared in the excitement around them. At the end of the paperwork, out of nowhere, a minister approached us and asked if we wanted her to perform our ceremony. After decades of no-you-can’t-marry-the-person-you-love, a perfect stranger asked if we wanted to get married. Two other strangers near us asked if we needed witnesses to the ceremony, which we did. They were our witnesses and we, in turn, were theirs. Yes, we had made it in time. We were triumphant. Plus, the hearing ended up with a decision in our favor anyway. There was no stay that day.
Y’all are, of course, welcome to your personal beliefs about gay marriage, which might differ from mine. So be it. I certainly would never presume I have the right to tell you what adult you can/cannot marry. But I will say that the support we had from good ol’, church-going Utah folks was incalculable—before and after we got hitched. It is still. Almost to a person, our friends and family members—and the strangers we met that day—were joyous about our ability to finally legally marry. They want our marriage to succeed. I can also report to you that in my nearly 60 years on the planet, the near-palpable glimpses of eternity I have experienced have shown themselves only at rare moments when I have been in Suzanne’s presence. I have never experienced such transcendence without her by my side. If there is a forever, I do not doubt we will be together in it. 💍🎩💝
I regret only one kindness we missed-out on the day we got married. It’s something we read about in the newspaper the next day. Apparently, after we were married and well on our way back to Delta for the holidays, an older Mormon married couple showed up at Farmington where the marriage ceremonies were still going on. The straight couple showed up with hundreds of cupcakes to give to the newlyweds. They said they felt compelled to do it, because everybody should have a piece of cake on their wedding day. I cannot argue with that sentiment. Kindness wins again. ,😉
be still my heart