Less than 12 hours after the Supreme Court overturned same-sex marriage bans, a Knox County couple held their wedding.
Minutes after securing their marriage license at the Knox County Clerk's Office, Jon Coffee and Keith Swafford on Friday were joined in marriage.
The young men were married Friday afternoon at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.
They also made history, securing the first same-sex marriage license to be issued in Knox County following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing such unions as constitutionally protected.
"Overwhelmed" was a word that came to both as they described the feeling of securing the license.
"It's amazing and it's pretty historic," Swafford said.
Coffee and Swafford had tried earlier in the day at the Clerk's Office in the Old Courthouse downtown to get the license but were declined. They persisted.
Wearing T-shirts featuring mock tuxedo prints, Coffee and Swafford sat side by side in the Clerk's Office as the license was issued about 3:20 p.m.
They then continued on to the church on Kingston Pike for an official marriage ceremony.
They displayed their marriage license outside the church as they waited for the ceremony.
Swafford said they had no special plans - "Just to get married."
He noted it had been a "grueling" process waiting for same-sex marriage litigation to wend its way through the system.
Coffee is a pastoral intern at the Universalist Church. He said it's his plan to help marry other same-sex couples at the church.
"We're so excited to do that, and we're doing it for free for anyone who has been waiting," Coffee said.
Among other East Tennessee county clerks who were prepared to issue licenses were those in Anderson, Claiborne, McMinn, Morgan, Scott and Sevier counties.
The court ruling came down about 10 a.m. Knoxville time. Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery held a formal press conference at 3 p.m. Knoxville time in Nashville to discuss the ruling.
At that press conference, Slatery told reporters that clerks across the state had been advised when the court ruling came down Friday morning to comply promptly.
That didn't happen in Knox County.
Clerk Foster Arnett said County Law Director Bud Armstrong had advised to wait and see what the state attorney general said Friday afternoon at his press conference in Nashville.
"I think that was sound advice, I mean it's just a few hours and we wanted to make sure we were following the letter of the law," Arnett said.
Arnett said: "We would be…I think…not responsible had we started earlier and the attorney general came back and said we're not gonna support this."
Another video below...
Another video below...
0 comments :
Post a Comment