Politics & Government

Gay Marriage in PA: 26 Licenses & Counting

Will Montgomery County become a "marriage license destination" and will those licenses hold up to judicial scrutiny?

Since starting to issue marriage license to same sex couples last Wednesday, Montgomery County Register of Wills Bruce Hanes issued 26 marriage licenses last week, in defiance of the Pennsylvania ban on gay marriage.

In order to get married in Pennsylvania, a couple needs to get a marriage license in the state, but they do not have to get it from the county in which they plan to marry, so this could mean same-sex couples from other parts of the state will come to Montgomery County to get their marriage license and return home to marry.

The problem same-sex couples could encounter is that the law still states:

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“It is hereby declared to be the strong and longstanding public policy of this Commonwealth that marriage shall be between one man and one woman.”

That means that the state can still refuse to recognize the marriage, as it would a same-sex marriage performed in another state. It also means that the court could void any marriage licenses issued before the law has been changed.

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Mary Catherine Roper, an ACLU attorney who is leading the effort to get Pennsylvania's gay marriage ban struck down said that the thorniest legal problem facing the couples isn't the fact that they are gay, but that Register of Wills Bruce Hanes defied state law in granting them their marriage licenses. In the past, Roper said courts have voided marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples against state law.

“When we have seen this before in other states it has resulted in court challenges and sometimes in the retroactive annulment of the marriages,“ the attorney said, pointing out that while the California Supreme Court determined same-sex couples have a right to marry, in a previous decision the court ruled that local officials don’t have the authority to bypass state marriage law.

“Anytime a public official comes out in favor of marriage equality, it’s a good thing,” Ted Martin, Executive Director of Equality Pennsylvania, told Patch.

But, Martin said, “we believe that the best way to get this is through the lawsuit filed by the ACLU.”



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