Same-sex marriage at last in Virginia, with inmates and cameras looking on
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Amid heckling from inmates in a county jail high-rise nearby and media crews barking at one another to get out of the way, Erika Turner and Jennifer Melsop made history Monday becoming among the first same-sex couples to be married in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
They were the very first for this Northern Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
Their vows were exchanged just a few feet outside the revolving front doors of the county courthouse where the pair had just filled out their marriage-license form hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a set of appeals, legalizing gay and lesbian unions in Virginia and 10 other states.
From a crowd of same-sex marriage supporters and journalists mingling on the courthouse plaza stepped a minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington.
Linda Olson Peebles had made her way to the courthouse after hearing of the Supreme Court decision to offer her services just in case a couple wanted to get married immediately. Turner and Melsop, both 26, eagerly agreed -- "Yeah, that'd be great," Turner said -- and with cameras rolling and a flora of microphones listening, the ceremony began.
The Arlington County marriage licence they held was a newly minted version, edited to allow boxes originally marked for husband and wife to read "spouse" and "spouse."
"Dearly beloved we have gathered together to join this woman and this woman in the holy state of matrimony," Peebles said as the ceremony began.
"You are changing history," she told the two. "Your families are coming together and the course of the world will be different because you now are a new family."
Both were so quiet, reporters begged them to sidle closer to the microphones. Turner is a registered nurse and Melsop a veterinarian's assistant. They live in nearby Centreville. Turner had proposed marriage about a year and half ago.
"We've been trying to figure out how to plan a wedding in other states. So we can't pass up an opportunity to marry in our own state," Turner told reporters later.
During the ceremony, they exchanged vows and rings and with three quick kisses on the lips were married.
They were late to the courthouse. Melop had forgotten her wallet and they had to go back and get it. That morning, she had discovered the Supreme Court decision on Facebook and came to Turner with tears welling up in her eyes to say, "I think we can get married today."
"We didn't know we were the first," Turner said.
"It's a little overwhelming," Melsop added.
When the ruling came down Monday, elected officials here decided to make a show of it. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring held a press conference at the courthouse: "This is a tremendous moment in Virginia history."
The clerk of the circuit court, Paul Ferguson, was prepared to present the first marriage license to the first couple right there on the plaza.
But for a few hours no one came. There were same-sex couples who came to mark the occasion, but each had been married in other places where the rite was legal.
Still, they said the moment bore benefits. Arlington attorney Elizabeth Wildhack and Arlington County Sheriff's Major Susie Doyel, married earlier this year in the District of Columbia, said they could now both be on Doyel's health insurance, an annual savings of $6,000.
"We don't need everybody to agree with us (as a same-sex married couple)," Wildhack said, acknowledging the resistance to gay marriage that still exists. "But we do need people to at least respect us. And today the government does."
As the afternoon wore on, Turner and Melsop arrived. As they filled out forms in the courthouse, another lesbian couple stepped forward to pay the $30 fee.
Back outside, Ferguson presented them with their license, a clerk's official handed each a red rose and Peebles stepped forward. Their nuptials suddenly became a matter for the evening news.
"I'll just have to Google our (wedding) video and save it," Turner mused. "I think we're probably going to have to go home and tell our parents."
