Saturday marriages in Michigan, USA

[nfisher1226]

So I have been following the topic of "marriage equality", or "gay marriage" or whatever you feel happy calling it, and seeing as Michigan borders on my home state it's been quite cool to see the weekend's developments there.

For those who don't know the bones of the story, a judge late last week ruled the state's gay marriage ban unconstitutional and did not issue a stay pending appeal, allowing gay and lesbian couples to go forward with marrying immediately. This turned out to be a temporary situation as a US district court went ahead and issued a stay pending the state of Michigan's appeal. Even so, 300 couples managed to get married in the brief window, many of whom did so at deputy registrar's offices that opened outside of their normal business hours expressly for them.

So it turns out this hits home a little more for me than I realized at first. One of my boyfriend's college classmates, who he was very close to and remains in contact with, married her longtime partner on Saturday. He met her at seminary actually, where they were studying to become ordained pastors. She was blocked from becoming ordained at the time because the board sensed that she was gay, and at the time the ELCA didn't allow gay pastors (they now do). Her partner, or I should now say wife actually, is an ELCA pastor.

To me, this is starting to get interesting as it's finally starting to happen close to where I live and involving people I have some connection to. I'm still hoping for some further action in Ohio, but Michigan is awfully close.

[Woollyhats]

I hope for the best. My city is one of the few "sister cities" in my country. That means half my city is on the Canadian border, and the other have is on yours.

Only one of these cities has marriage equality. And it's not the one in Michigan.

[nfisher1226]

I'm well aware of the differences between the country to our north in this regard. You're basically just across a stretch of water from me. Granted, it's a big lake.