Same-sex couples in Wash. state take wedding vows
Jessica Lee, 19, left, and Ashley Cavner, 21, from Vancouver, Wash., complete their wedding vows shortly after midnight on Sunday morning, Dec. 9, 2012 in Clark County. Sunday is the first day same-sex couples can marry under Washington state's new voter-approved law allowing gay marriage. Minister Rob Figley presided over the wedding at the First Congregational Church in Vancouver, Wash. / AP Photo/Steven Lane, The Columbian
SEATTLE Same-sex couples in Washington state began reciting wedding vows at events across the state Sunday, on the first day they could marry after the state's gay marriage law took effect.
About 140 couples had registered to marry at Seattle City Hall, which had set up five separate chapels to accommodate the revelers. Starting at 10 a.m., cheers and applause regularly broke out as another couple's marriage became official. Weddings at city hall were to continue through 5 p.m.
"We're totally thrilled," said Keith Bacon, who celebrated his six-year anniversary with Corianton Hale the night before. The couple had done a commitment ceremony in August but said this day was special.
Same-sex couples get married in Wash.
"We had looked at this as maybe a day we would sign a piece of paper and seal the deal, and instead we're having this huge party being thrown in our honor," Bacon said. "It's just mind blowing."
The couple hugged and kissed to loud cheers and camera flashes as they took their vows before one of the 16 local judges who volunteered to officiate the weddings on Sunday.
Nancy Monahan, 57, a retired petty office with the Coast Guard, waited outside before the weddings began with her partner of 14 years, Deb Needham, 48.
Monahan was wearing her uniform, and Needham was wearing an ivory dress and jacket and matching hat. They said they wanted to join the large wedding event at city hall because of the significance of the day.
"It's not very private, but very historic," Needham said, to which Monahan added, "And very awesome."
Some courthouses, including in King and Thurston Counties, opened right at midnight, and started marrying couples.
Judge Mary Yu embraces Emily Cofer, right, and Sarah Cofer after declaring them wed moments after midnight in the King County Courthouse, becoming among the first gay couples to legally wed Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012, in Seattle. At left, friend Anne Levinson holds the couple's daughter, Carter, age nine months.
/ AP Photo/Elaine ThompsonHundreds of gay and lesbian couples picked up their marriage licenses as early as 12:01 a.m. Thursday, but because of the state's three-day waiting period, the earliest weddings could take place was just after midnight, early Sunday morning.
At the Thurston County Courthouse five couples were married, including Jonathon Bashford, 31, and Matthew Wiltse, 29, both of Olympia.
The couple, together for 10 years, just had a large commitment ceremony in September when they registered as domestic partners, but said they wanted to be among the first to legally marry.
"We weren't going to wait one second longer," Wiltse said.
Last month, Washington, Maine and Maryland became the first states to pass same-sex marriage by popular vote. They joined six other states — New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont — and the District of Columbia that had already enacted laws or issued court rulings permitting same-sex marriage.
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Yes, ALL Americans have the rights of EQUALITY and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS, and this just proves that the older conservative ideology is falling by the wayside, as younger and more tolerant Americans are voting intelligently for gay/lesbian rights and marijuana legalization!
The people have spoken. Citizens have the right to pursue happiness like we all do.
The bottom line is, whenever you leave something "to the people", people are always eager to ban something they don't like (but don't you DARE ban their thing THEY believe in). Very rarely have civil rights been granted willingly by a majority to a minority. Its almost always been the courts that have led in guaranteeing civil rights. With civil rights, leaving it "to the people" is just asking for trouble.
1 Cor. 6:9-10, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,1 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
Rom. 1:26-28, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper."
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ESV
"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
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SLOWNEWS replies: Dan's a polygamist white supremacist?
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So dan's just playing the odds, and likes both little boys and little girls!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6JYXiXio74
Even the people that aren't into this style can't deny this is cute!
I dunno if I would like hearing kids yelling while actively trying "not" to make any LOL!
Proves it...."OWN_IT" is just another gay guy in Colorado, looking for fun!
Guess all that drinking is to loosen his inhibitions!
At the time, and until this thread, I wasn't aware it was music you made, T4T. I was mistaken, on that.
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I even wrote in the e-mail that it's from 2003 when we went to war..
That was the whole reason for sending it back then!
(They say memory is the 2nd thing to go)
Maybe?