The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Back in 1975, when she was the county clerk for Boulder, Colo., [Clela] Rorex made headlines — and enemies — when she changed the words “male” and “female” to “person” on the county’s marriage license application and allowed six same-sex couples to wed.
None of the licenses has held up in court — but then, not all of them have been challenged. . . .
Shortly after taking office in 1975, Rorex was approached by a Colorado Springs couple who had been turned away by El Paso County in their quest to marry.
“The county clerk there said, ‘I don’t do that, but they do that kind of thing in Boulder,’ ” apparently because Boulder had recently passed an ordinance outlawing housing discrimination against same-sex couples, Rorex said.
“I got an opinion from the district attorney’s office indicating that the marriage statute at that time did not preclude giving a marriage license to people of the same sex,” she said. “I issued a license and a few more before the state attorney general weighed in.”
At the time, Colorado Attorney General J.D. MacFarlane told the New York Times he didn’t consider the licenses valid but had no plans to challenge them in court.
“At that point, the D.A. backed away and said that the state attorney general’s office does not have superiority, but in the eyes of the public, they do,” Rorex said, adding that she was afraid the certificates would mislead couples into thinking they had rights the state would not recognize.
So, about a month after she began, she stopped issuing same-sex marriage licenses. . . .
One outraged man came into town with his mare, Dolly, and asked Rorex to marry them. Her answer was no — at 8 years old, the horse was under age, she said. . . .
Thanks to reader Jim Herd for the pointer.
Comments are closed.