AP PHOTO/KIM RAFF
BIG LOVE
terrupted the evening’s planned
coverage to announce that Judge
Shelby had denied the state’s
request to put a halt to same-sex
marriages while it filed an appeal
of his earlier ruling.
The evening had already been
tense. At dinner, no one had congratulated the newlyweds, and no
one had mentioned the court case
that had drawn reporters from
the national media to their state.
Only now, with the newscaster
forcing the issue into the living
room, did Sally’s sister Susan
speak her mind. “She snapped,”
Sally recounted a few days later.
“She said, ‘That is just wrong.
HUFFINGTON
03.09.14
The people should decide what
happens in their state.’ And I
turned to her and I just exploded.”
Sally had never seen herself as
a fighter for gay rights, but something changed in her in the weeks
after the initial ruling and her
wedding, she said. “My heart is
heavy, and I am tired,” she wrote
in a blog post for Marriage Equality USA, a gay-rights advocacy
group. “I can no longer remain
silent on this issue.”
Especially provoking to Sally
was Utah’s decision to defend
the marriage ban by arguing that
heterosexual couples are better
at raising children than gay parents. “I need the world to see that
our family, these kids, we’re no
goddamned different from any-
Elise Larsen,
left, and
Samantha
Christensen,
right, display
their marriage
license after
being one of
the first samesex couples to
receive one at
the Salt Lake
County Clerk’s
Office on
Dec. 20,
2013.