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Dispatches from the Front

Gay marriage at the Franklin County Courthouse on Valentine’s Day
by Free Press staff
March 21, 2005

Lee Gatwood surprised Kevin Bayles, his partner of four years, with a ring right before the ceremony. Another lesbian couple, not pictured, who are African American, decided to leave right after the ceremony when they learned that they would be turned down for a marriage license. It is surprising but many Ohio citizens still do not know that gays can’t legally marry here in the “land of the free.” These six couples, accompanied by Rev. Hawk, went into the Courthouse and applied for licenses. When refused, they thanked the clerk and said. “We’ll be back next year and every year until we get equal rights!” A couple of women passing by while the ceremony was being performed, were heard to say, as if scripted in a grade B movie, “It was Adam and Eve!” and “They must be praying to a different God.” Rev. Creech commented later, “Maybe we ARE praying to a different God; ours loves and accepts everybody, regardless of orientation!”

Rev. Creech said after the ceremony, “This country and this state can make all the bigoted laws they wish; that is not going to stop us from marrying. You cannot legislate love or sex between consenting adults, not in a country that is pretending to be the ambassador of human rights to the whole world. England now has civil unions for gays, Canada has outright marriage, as does Massachusetts. Germany has unions, and even smaller countries are ahead of the United States on this human rights issue. I cannot fathom how gay marriage is perceived as a threat to heterosexual marriage. . . . Hypocrisy is definitely not a Christian value, according to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.”

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