An elected clerk of Boulder County is continuously issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, defying all odds and ends by the attorney general in Colorado who earlier warned that same-sex marriages remain illegal and invalid unless there is a conclusive judicial resolution.
Bounty County's clerk, Hillary Hall, started the issuance of such license on Wednesday, as encouraged by a recent ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals stating that the ban imposed on same-sex marriages in Utah was unconstitutional. The decision of the appeals court also applies to other states, which include Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Kansas. Utah. New Mexico is the only state among the six that currently permits same-sex marriage.
The ruling, however, was put on hold as the appeals court expected to receive a legal challenge from Utah.
Nevertheless, Hall started to issue two licenses on Wednesday. More gay couples came to secure marriage licenses on Thursday, with 17 licenses on the record. Some were married fast simply by signing the certificates, which is a permitted process under the Colorado law.
Hall says she won't stop issuing such licenses unless a court orders her to do so, noting that many couples have long been waiting for this.
"Given the 10th Circuit's recent decision and the numerous other cases on this issue, I would be surprised if a judge in Colorado were willing to invalidate a marriage license simply because the parties to the marriage were the same sex," Hall says in a statement.
Colorado's attorney general John Suthers was, however, firm with his stance, as supported by other legal experts.
"Any marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples in Colorado before a final court resolution of the issue are invalid," said Suthers.
Lawyer Ralph Ogden, representing a lesbian couple that sued to reverse the ban in Colorado, believes Hall's move was also on the wrong side.
"You know what side I'm on, and I'd like to say everything is OK, but from the legal side it isn't," Ogden said.
The hold order by the appeals court, however, is being questioned if it applies to all the states in the region or only applicable to Utah. If it doesn't apply to Colorado, other legal experts think Suthers may find himself in hot water for stopping the issuance of marriage licenses of gay couples.
According to research, Boulder County has the same incident in 1975 when a clerk also issued marriage licenses to a number of gay couples, which were later ruled as unlawful.
Meanwhile, an official at St. Louis County in Missouri is facing a lawsuit from attorney general Chris Koster for granting gay marriage licenses in the midst of a current state ban on such.
