| Monday, June 16, 2008 |
| Love and marriage |
Today is the day that same sex couples are allowed to start getting married in California. Of course, it's possible the right will be taken away by the voters in November, but for a few months, at least, it's game on. I'm sure a lot of longtime couples will be hurrying to wed before election day rolls around, just in case (even though a recent poll showed that a majority of Californians now support same sex marriage). Gays might even rush headlong into marriage the way straight people have been doing for centuries!
Because Joe and I are big supporters of marriage equality, he decided to volunteer as a deputy marriage commissioner, and will be marrying couples in the very same place the two of us got married a few years ago, the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder's Office. They are having special extended hours tonight, from 5-8 PM. He was "recruited" by our friend Janet A., who has been performing marriages at the office for several years now. If you go by the stereotype, she does not seem to be the type of person who would be eager to help same sex couples get married -- she's a 60something churchgoing lady, born and bred in the South -- but she is extremely enthusiastic about the new California law, and in fact she performed the county's very first same sex wedding tonight (I just saw the back of her head on the TV news!). Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is also marrying couples tonight, but we all know who was first. Way to go, Janet A.!
Maybe Joe will guest blog about his marryin' experiences in this space later (hint!). In any case, I'm proud of him for actually getting out there on the front lines. |
posted by 125records @ 5:49 PM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Way to go Joe. That's really cool. Is there any requirements for who gets to do the marrying? I never would have guessed this was a volunteer position.
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Here's video of Janet (starting at around 1:30):
http://www.ktvu.com/video/16626447/index.html
Janet told me that a few years ago, the state contracted its possible civil marrying places to just one or two in each county, so the personnel needs at those places increased drastically - thus the call for volunteers.
I've married 9 couples so far, and it's been wonderful.
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Excellent, Joe. I'd been under the assumption you had to be able to captain a ship to marry people, though.
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Way to go Joe. That's really cool. Is there any requirements for who gets to do the marrying? I never would have guessed this was a volunteer position.