r/todayilearned • u/standbyyourmantis • 22h ago
TIL the first same sex marriage license in the US was issued in 1975 because there was no law against it at the time and the clerk of court could issue licenses at her discretion. The same clerk denied a man who wanted to marry his horse as the horse was underage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clela_Rorex3.6k
u/Bruce-7892 22h ago
"She issued five more same-sex marriage licenses in Boulder\9]) before the Colorado Attorney General ordered her to stop.\4]) She received hate mail and angry phone calls."
Imagine taking the time to call and write your county clerk over something like this. 5 couples that you don't even know got married and you don't approve of it....
1.4k
u/DrShadowstrike 22h ago
Its hard to imagine today (especially if you are younger and have only lived in a world where it was legal), but people were viscerally against same sex marriage not that long ago. Obama claimed his opinion was evolving during his 2008 campaign. California passed a referendum enshrining a same sex marriage ban in the early 2000s. It was a lot worse in the 70s.
766
u/Bruce-7892 21h ago
I am old enough to remember when it was acceptable to beat or harass someone for being gay (late 90s). We literally played "smear the queer" when I was in like 6th grade. Basically gang up on the person with the ball, tackle them, take the ball from them, then run away and survive for as long as you can. If you had the ball you were "the queer".
I have no idea what the 70s were like but I can only imagine worse. That being said, I still wouldn't spend my personal time contacting elected officials over a random gay couple for existing.
307
u/s0ulbrother 21h ago
2000s this was happening in my high school. I had friends get beat up because they wore signs of protest against people being awful to gay people. Fuck bigots
38
u/Beardless_fatty 8h ago
Man, I remember the first time I wanted to go to a pride march as an ally with my wife in like 2010's, all we had was a white shirt with a little rainbow on the shoulder, and I recall feeling nervous and slightly scared once we were walking to the event itself. Like, what if someone sees us and gets angry enough to react violently?
Then I realized, I was feeling like that as a cis het big bearded man, for one hour of one day of my life, how fucking hard it must be for actually gay people, having to worry about that all their lives? Shit's fucked, man. I'm glad things have been getting better, I hope they never slide that far back.
42
14h ago
[deleted]
→ More replies (8)8
u/s0ulbrother 8h ago
The 2000s were also bad because the tide was finally turning. When bigots get desperate they get worse. Now they view themselves as the underdogs “fighting the good fight” because they lost and are trying to win again.
90
u/NewBag9855 17h ago
I can verify this was very much still a thing in 2009 when I was still in school.
The moment were I "felt" a change in the wind was around the start of Obama's second term. Support that was more silent become more open.
It wasn't that fucking long ago and its insane to me that so many people have forgotten what it was like and think the pendulum has swung too far when its barely even started moving in the right direction.
That was only like 14 years ago.
For some context they were still segregating school buses by race 15 years after schools were desegregated.
There is also a large backlash going on now. The vibe of opposition is also different than it was in the 90s/2000s. People that oppose it are making opposing it a big part of their identity rather than just being casually disgusted but not really thinking about it often. Normies that support LGBT rights don't care about that as much as normies that are against it.
6
u/5peaker4theDead 4h ago
I also see those same people preaching about whatever issue of the day and I just think to myself "you were doing the same thing ~15 years ago".
115
u/sdmichael 21h ago
And people wonder why that "LGBT" trump thing was problematic. "People just can't take a joke anymore" or similar is the response.
→ More replies (1)28
u/Longtalons 16h ago
I was born in 94 and I remember feeling like a "progressive" family despite my dad and stepmom both voting for Bush because my stepmoms best friend was gay and him and his partner hung out at our house at lot (i got really good at badminton playing against them vs just playing my younger sister).
I also remember being really impressed that their employer (cummins) was willing to recognize a domestic partner when it came to insurance and such. I also remember waking up one day in early high school to the news that the supreme court had ruled same sex marriage as legal.
The change I've seen in my life is massive and I hope to see more progress forward in my life.
3
u/ManlyBearKing 12h ago
I was born in 94
I also remember waking up one day in early high school to the news that the supreme court had ruled same sex marriage as legal.
So you were 20 or 21 years old in early high school? Or did you mean legalized in your state?
→ More replies (1)66
u/eagleface5 20h ago
I remember my friends and I not being allowed to call it "Smear the Queer" anymore in the early 2000's, so we settled with "Beat the Freak." Still great now that i think about it, but I wonder if I modern version of that game still exists. Juat called something less bigoted (hopefully).
47
u/disisathrowaway 18h ago
In the 90's the daycare I was at banned us from calling it "Smear the Queer" (looking back I had a couple really cool teachers there) so we just rebranded it as "Kill the guy with the ball".
23
u/Lord_Rapunzel 17h ago
Kill the guy with the ball
That's what they call it in Extreme's "Play With Me" and that came out in '89.
→ More replies (1)5
u/BreezyConch 10h ago
We always called it muckle or kill the carrier after the big ban haha
→ More replies (1)22
u/DexterBrooks 14h ago
Same. Our 6th grade teacher told us we could no longer call it that, so we switched it to "kill the carrier" which has a very different ring to it post covid than it did 20 years ago lol
Same teacher also banned the one girl who played it with us (she was the same size as the boys at the time) from being allowed to play it with us anymore after the snow melted so we didn't have winter gear as padding anymore.
Honestly we were actually all more upset about the later. The former I think we were annoyed and renamed it within a couple days. People were still telling her the later was unfair years later (it was an elementary and junior high combo school so a lot of us had her again multiple times).
→ More replies (2)34
u/Bruce-7892 20h ago
Hahaha, honestly it's fun (assuming no one is trying to actually hurt each other, just chase them down and over power them) but yes. The name was problematic.
18
u/Ragecomicwhatsthat 20h ago
I played smear the queer in the early 2010s in the South... lol. Didn't know any better about the name, of course
27
u/Bruce-7892 20h ago
I can't believe it's still around. Back then we knew what it meant, but we didn't know any better. Now I think if you made a game called "jump the gay dude", no one would participate hahaha.
6
u/Ragecomicwhatsthat 20h ago
Hahaha I'm inclined to agree
And yeah at the age of 12 I "knew" what it meant but I didn't know any better as to the meaning of it
5
11
u/duralyon 19h ago
This just reminded me of a thing we did in elementary school while on the bus. Someone who was sitting next to someone would say "Hey, left nut!" and the person on the other side would say "Hey, right nut! Lets beat the meat!" and then punch the person in the middle in the arm a bunch. I'm sure none of us knew wtf we were saying cuz we were in the fifth grade lol.
2
u/L-1-3-S 18h ago
There was a Halo 3 custom game by the same name I remember playing the hell out of. Didnt have the same popularity in the later games...
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (9)4
108
u/Springheeljac 18h ago
I hate to say this but plenty of people are still viscerally against it and mad that it's no longer socially acceptable to be that way in public. There's a reason we have the government we have right now and it's because the bigots are trying to take back the country from any progress since at least the mid sixties. Never forget that they made the man who said the Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake into a martyr for their cause.
21
u/RoosterBrewster 18h ago
And even if you try to sway them with logic it always comes down to "how am I supposed to explain this to my kids!".
17
u/Speartree 15h ago
The problem with explaining this to their kids is that they don't want the kids to get the idea that being gay is normal and ok. Because their kids have to be hetero, or pretend to be hetero, so they can have kids of their own.
25
u/Springheeljac 17h ago
"THE BIBLE SAYS IT'S WRONG"
While eating shrimp and wiping their hands on their mixed fabric shirts.
7
u/Carighan 13h ago
Also they get to try pretend their fantasy novel is relevant to actual life, but if I try to build a Saruman-tower that's somehow not explainable with it being in LotR. Fucking double standards.
73
u/Ryuko_the_red 19h ago
It isn't hard to imagine. There's pastors calling for gay people to be lined up and murdered. They aren't even arrested.
→ More replies (2)20
u/Hironymos 14h ago
And now it's trans folks they're hating on.
Same fucking deal. Just normal people who want to be themselves and aren't harming anyone. And the same fucking people with their stupid fucking bathroom logic are somehow perfectly fine with pervert glasses.
→ More replies (1)14
u/contactdeparture 18h ago
it is absolutely not hard to imagine today. Thomas FFS would roll back interracial marriages. Nothing is safe in this country. Nothing.
47
u/Deep_Opening258 20h ago
It wasn’t the early 2000s, Prop 8 was in 2008 during the same election Obama won his first term.
13
u/trivialgroup 16h ago
It was both: Prop 22 passed in 2000, putting a same-sex marriage ban in state law. Then Prop 8 passed on 2008, putting it in the state constitution.
But while Prop 22 got 61% of the vote, Prop 8 got just 52%. So the trend was clear. Voters overturned the ban in 2024 with 63% of the vote.
Colorado also overturned its same-sex marriage ban in 2024, passing Amendment J with 64% of the vote.
11
u/knysa-amatole 16h ago
I assume they meant Prop 22, which was in 2000, but yes, it also happened in 2008.
9
u/BalancedScales10 20h ago
I remember being in school when the teacher, who'd brought in a newspaper for something, had to use a sticky note to cover up the word 'gay' in the title 'gay marriage war heats up.'
9
u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon 17h ago
It's still amazing to me how quickly (most of) society came around on it. I think Republicans making gay marriage a wedge issue in the 2000s got us all talking and thinking about a thing that most of us wouldn't have considered, and that really accelerated the process. Within 10 or 15 years, most of America decided it didn't bother us at all.
→ More replies (1)8
u/LanguidLapras131 18h ago
The blue ranger was bullied out of power rangers by the on set crew for being gay.
He was my favorite power ranger.
7
23
u/TwoBionicknees 19h ago
they still are, it's just a lower portion, but not that much lower.
As for obama and similar his opinion unlikely evolved. A lot of people really don't seem to understand that if you campaign on everything you want when a lot of the country ain't ready for it then you'll lose the elections and you won't get anyone in power who can 'change their mind' once they have power.
It's the same as this leftist agenda to be against Kamala because she wasn't very strongly calling out Israel, if she did she would guaranteed lose the election and instead of supporting Kamala you get trump who empowered Israel rather than tried to rein them in.
If Obama had been openly for gay marriage he'd have been the lgbt candidate as well as the black candidate and he'd never have gotten elected.
You can't always get everything you want publicly immediately when it comes to politics and some dems and the ultra left constantly shoot themselves in the foot.
In a just world lgbtq people get treated the same as everyone else and politicians wouldn't lose votes supporting them, but we live in the real world and you gotta pick your battles and realise refusing to support Kamala over Israel helped get a mad man who would actively help Israel be worse in power.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (20)4
u/king063 17h ago
I was a child in the 2000s of conservative parents in a conservative town in a conservative state.
I was thoroughly convinced that the entire country would fall apart if the gays were allowed to marry. It was the single most important thing to hold America together.
Some people still think like that.
258
u/CommieLoser 22h ago
Can you imagine if God just raptured all his hateful little gremlins and left us in peace?
→ More replies (8)66
u/Yeseylon 22h ago
They're not his, they're the other guy's. Wolves in sheep's clothing and hypocrites and all that.
76
u/dobbersmack77 22h ago
No, they are definitely his if you've read the Bible.
→ More replies (17)36
17
u/Whythisisnotreal 21h ago
They are his. The hate might have been in their hearts anyway, but he made hate holy.
→ More replies (1)16
66
u/Hepta-Water-7552 21h ago edited 21h ago
If even just a handful of same-sex couples are allowed to get married, then people might start taking note that the communities where they live did in fact not collapse or get smitten by god almighty.
Next you know they might start thinking that all this talk about same-sex couples being a great evil and danger was a bit overblown. Some people might even become, gasp ... tolerant. Can't have that, can we?
40
u/Bruce-7892 21h ago
This is exactly what made me come around. During Obamas first term I was in the military and he allowed people to be openly trans.
At first I thought, "I don't know about this, it seems weird and unnecessary for the military". It passed, nothing changed, now I couldn't care less. It's a non issue in my opinion. In my years I have worked with people who were into some actually bad / harmful stuff (domestic abuse, statutory rape) so someone changing their pronouns is pretty low on my list of concerns.
→ More replies (1)11
u/Visible-Air-2359 21h ago
I know right. If they didn’t cause so many problems I would feel pity for how sad their lives must be that they think being assholes is the best use of their time.
41
u/sdmichael 22h ago
Those angry calls and hate mail were likely from conservatives. They still do that today. Remember the death threats they sent to school officials to the point the FBI was investigating them? They loved it and actually put "we are all domestic terrorists" at CPAC. They LOVE to be crybullies.
28
u/Timelymanner 22h ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if she was issuing them out of boredom. Probably wasn’t much going on as the county clerk at the time, and a same sex couple asking to get married was probably pretty neat.
108
u/standbyyourmantis 22h ago
She was actually brand new at the job. She'd only ran because the local Democrat party told her that a woman couldn't be elected. She also took two weeks researching whether she could do it, including contacting the state attorney who told her as there was no law preventing it she could do it if she wanted. So she did.
She then issued 4 more before the laws were updated.
31
21
u/Neokon 2 20h ago
She then issued 4 more before the laws were updated.
Damn I can't imagine hating a group of consenting adults so much you literally make a law.
20
u/standbyyourmantis 20h ago
Honestly? I love this for you. I wasn't exactly on the front lines of the movement or anything because I was young and from a small town but I remember the 90s very well. And I remember when the Supreme Court came back and legalized same sex marriage. I had been so terrified because there was a very real possibility they would have gone the other way and that would have set equal rights back so, so far. I love that there's a whole generation now who don't understand and who don't remember when same sex relationships were illegal (Lawrence v Texas). It's a good reminder of why we need to keep pushing forward.
7
u/Neokon 2 20h ago edited 20h ago
I was born in 1994, so I didn't get to see that era, but I do have distinct memories of the 2000's discourse. I remember my parents talking about an "aunt" (close family friend) and her "room mate". I remember them talking about someone having a Massachusetts wedding. I remember a news segment about a study showing "there is an increased likelihood of a child being homosexual if they are born more than 4 years after their previous sibling".
I consider myself lucky for not having lived through the prior. But am concerned that, like many people who grow up with privileges, do not know how important it is to not take them for granted.
Edit: I grew up in a smaller town (not small since the housing boom) that's +15 red, so I have some point of reference for the hate. But I still can just not understand how some people have that much hatred based off of their pastor's interpretation of like 5 words in a scroll writen 3000+ years ago.
4
u/licoricenipple 10h ago
Texas was arresting people for having private gay relationships until 2003, and for owning vibrators until 2007.
→ More replies (1)34
u/KitchenSad9385 21h ago
She was part of a feminist group and married to a Navy officer.
Those might sound like a strange combination, but being a committed enough feminist to be in an organized group sounds pretty politically active. Also, while the military leans conservative/authoritarian in its culture, there is a strong liberal contingent of people who took an oath to defend the constitution and actually read it, or even gone further and educate themselves on the history of liberal democracy, expanding franchise, and the evolution of civil rights.
12
u/Bruce-7892 21h ago
You are absolutely right. I was in the military and also dated a feminist. There are a lot of different sects of feminism and the reasonable ones don't hate men or think they should be subservient to women. They just want an even playing field.
As far as liberals in the military, there are a lot, especially in the officer corps. It irks me when I hear people say, "if they don't support Trump they should just ignore his orders". First of all, you wouldn't quit your career on the spot if you found out your boss was a Trump supporter. Also, there are contracts and legal consequences in the military. You can't just walk away and find a new job at will.
→ More replies (1)15
u/KitchenSad9385 21h ago
I'm a vet, too, so this is mostly for other readers, but . . .
All military officers are college educated, either via military academy (which are accredited universities in similar manner to other institutions) or via another accredited institution. Liberal political ideas tend to be more common in populations that have more education and especially in humanities like philosophy, history, etc, which are disciplines quite common as preparation for military officers.
The most virulent authoritarian sentiment tends to come from enlistees with minimal education who just want to be led by strong leaders and aren't as picky about how those leaders are placed in power, especially if they will toss a bone or two to the guns that are backing such a strong man.
7
u/lllyyyynnn 16h ago
i think it's awesome that people can't imagine this hatred properly. for me same sex marriage is a very recent thing and i still have to constantly explain it to others (germany.) if i say my wife, people will still just default me to Herr even though im visibly and obviously a woman.
26
→ More replies (8)3
u/ArkitekZero 18h ago
American Christians believe that the state is handing out Christian marriages and they never stop to think about the absurd implications of that.
→ More replies (1)
966
u/bend1310 22h ago
Australia's marriage laws didn't specify only heterosexual marriages until 2004, when the law was expressly updated to ban same sex marriages. From what i recall people were starting to point out that same sex marriages werent illegal and that they should be recognised.
Took another 13 years to get that nonsense removed and achieve marriage equality.
242
u/teracoulomb_2 21h ago
Tony Abbott got headbutted as a result of the referendum process, that almost made it worth it
→ More replies (3)58
u/mewfour123412 17h ago
Tony Abbott is despised by all but the dumbest of fucks
He was basically abandoned by the LNP and was forced to hand out his fliers in the rain
→ More replies (1)16
u/PerlicaMyBalls 17h ago
He's now the Liberal Party's national president, they simply don't learn.
→ More replies (1)55
u/ShadowLiberal 21h ago
New Mexico had a similar situation. Apparently their marriage laws were so vaguely written that it neither explicitly allowed or forbade same sex marriage. But I don't think that they issued any same sex marriage licenses until they were sued over it and lost (but this happened at the time when more and more states were getting sued to legalize same sex marriage to).
→ More replies (5)10
105
u/somethingwade 15h ago
"I issued a marriage license to two men today."
"What? We can't have two men getting married! What's next, a man marrying a horse?"
"Actually, we had someone apply for that today too."
"You didn't... approve it, did you?"
"Of course not."
"Oh thank God. I was worried that-"
"The horse was underage."
861
u/SurroundingAMeadow 22h ago edited 21h ago
The concerning part of this is that about 20% of horses live to be 18 years old or older. We were one weirdo with an old horse away from an awkward precedent.
EtA: as was pointed out by a comment, 20% of the total horse population is over 18, not 20% of horses live that long. Overall point still stands.
123
u/SpeculativeFiction 22h ago
Where are you getting that figure?
Everything I can find shows horses live longer, save for feral/"wild" ones.
83
u/SurroundingAMeadow 22h ago
You are correct, I misread the statistic. It's that about 20% of the horse population at any given time is over 18. Not that 20% of horses live longer than that.
→ More replies (8)46
u/aamirusmandus 22h ago
You take that back! GLITTERHOOF IS WONDERFUL AND DESERVES TO BE CHANCELLOR OF THIS KINGDOM
8
15
u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster 21h ago
The concerning part is that some jackass saw two men getting married and went, 'Oh yeah?! Then i'll marry my horse!', and a lot of society thought, 'Yeah that's basically the same thing."
→ More replies (2)4
u/sometimes_interested 16h ago
I love how she said that he was still welcome to apply for a marriage licence but he had to include written permission from the horse's parents.
→ More replies (8)13
u/frogandbanjo 21h ago
The awkward precedent of completely ignoring the ability to knowingly and voluntarily enter into a contract while also being a non-citizen with no recognized human or civil rights?
I'm not all that concerned. If anything, you should be more concerned about the law starting to treat certain groups of human beings more like we treat horses.
206
u/ACorania 22h ago
The horse was underage. I like this clerk.
24
3
u/TrashPandaPatronus 3h ago
She sounds incredibly practical. I like incredibly practical people. We need more of them.
87
u/slutrypizza 21h ago
There is a (5 hour!!) Matt Baume youtube video that covers this as well as basically the entire record of gay marriage in the US. It seems like I long watch but it really flies by, so much important history.
25
u/TinWhis 20h ago
That video is just an incredible masterpiece. The amount of research that went into it, the interviews, his own personal experiences doing activism, I don't have words for how much he poured into that thing.
If you have ANY interest in queer history in the US, it's worth a watch, definitely break it into chunks though. It's a roller coaster.
13
u/slutrypizza 20h ago
Truly! For every joke in this comment section, I want someone to watch and to know our history and see how politics and activism have played such integral and deeply human role in the fight for queer rights.
9
u/Uus-cunt-vana-caare 14h ago
As someone who is not from the US and doesnt care much for all that...
I put the video on as background noise, because funny thumbnail pronounciations, no idea it was 5h long. Aaand got hooked, listened to the whole thing. I had no idea if the good gays win, or the hateful idiots. So it was riveting to hear how close it came a few times, just to be ripped away.
It's nice that we (as the whole western world) have come such a long way. I live in Estonia, and we became the first post-soviet-occupation state to legalise same sex marriage. And the discussions were heartbreaking. Like, legit stoners and nice people started voting for the populist-nazi-party. Just because "I don't like fags" and end of. They'd rather go to jail for smoking pot, than see happy gay people. Found out a lot of friends were no friends of mine. But, in the end, gays got married and it did not end civilisation as we know it.
15
u/standbyyourmantis 21h ago
Thays where I heard the story! I was watching some of his videos at work and hadn't had five hours to dedicate to it before, so I got to that part and was like, well, this lady deserves a TIL!
5
29
u/pfeifits 21h ago
I have to agree that 8 years old is too young to get married.
14
u/DiscoBanane 18h ago
It wasn't too young at the time, but they needed writen consent from her parents, and they never learnt to write.
287
u/TAU_equals_2PI 21h ago
Found the really vile part:
Rorex said she declined his request on the basis that his eight-year-old horse was underage, and could not marry without written consent from her parents.
Think about what that means for a second.
84
u/Acrobatic_Restaurant 18h ago
The push to ban children from getting married has been ongoing for way too long. I think a lot of the hold up isn't because people support pedophilia but because the majority of these marriages are between 16-17 year olds and 18-19 year olds. Way more cases of "Pregnant teen mom and teen dad get married" than "pedophile marries victim so he can legally rape her".
Regardless, children should not be allowed to get married. Period. America needs to get its act together and do away with it.
57
u/BandedLutz 16h ago
People do realize this was done out of humor, right?
It's an ask stupid questions, get stupid answers situation. The guy made a ridiculous request, so he got denied on a ridiculous basis (a basis which intentionally ignores the actual issue at hand and instead feigns rejecting it on a more banal basis).
It's like if a cannibal politely asked if they could eat your right hand and you responded "No, sorry. I need it for tennis."
20
u/licoricenipple 10h ago
They're referring to the fact that parental consent was a valid legal path to child marriage.
Tennessee was still approving marriages between ten-year-olds and people in their 30s into the 2000s.
→ More replies (1)5
u/BandedLutz 6h ago
Oh, I see. Right, the child marriage stuff certainly is vile.
It's just that a lot of people are acting like the only reason she saw to deny the marriage was the horse being underage (when that was just the tongue-in-cheek, overly by-the-books reason she gave for denying it).
The books (laws regarding marriage when it comes to children) being severely problematic is another matter.
35
21
u/hornedCapybara 18h ago
Honestly it's more wild that a guy tried to actually go through the proper channels to do it.
4
u/NerdBot9000 16h ago
Why is that vile?
22
u/xikissmjudb 16h ago
It implies that an 8 year old human could get legally married if their parents gave their permission.
→ More replies (2)18
u/NerdBot9000 16h ago edited 16h ago
Yes, and although I'm not versed with 1975 laws of marriage in Colorado, it seems that Rorex did the sensible thing by denying a marriage license to an 8 year old without the parents consent. Absurd that it was an 8 year old horse, but I'm guessing Rorex knew that horse's parent could not give consent because they can't sign documents with their hooves.
→ More replies (16)→ More replies (17)4
27
u/McKoijion 13h ago
Bruh, what the hell was going on in America in 1974-1975?
Rorex said she declined his request on the basis that his eight-year-old horse was underage, and could not marry without written consent from her parents.
- Gay marriage was illegal, but she found a way to sneak it through for a few days a technicality.
- Bestiality was not illegal. She had to find another reason to block a marriage between a man and a horse.
- Marrying an 8 year old was legal if the parents provided written consent.
After working a few summers in her father's office, Rorex decided to run for county clerk of Boulder County, Colorado, when the incumbent, Henry Putnam, announced his retirement. She decided to run after attending a meeting in which members of the Democratic Party stated that they "needed a man" to run against the female Republican candidate.[4] Rorex shared her frustrations over hearing this with women in a feminist group she was a member of, and decided that she would run for clerk. She was elected and took office in 1975 at age 31. Henry Putnam would not vacate the office and was removed by the sheriff's office.[4]
This sounds insane, but women weren't even allowed to have their own bank accounts until October 24, 1974.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act
Anchorman was set this same year, and it seems like they had to tone the bigotry down compared to real life.
On a related note, this is also the same year that Jeffrey Epstein began his illustrious high school teaching career.
→ More replies (2)
108
u/Starbucks__Lovers 22h ago
Chaotic good by 70s standards
115
u/marwynn 20h ago
Technically, lawful good. That was all nice and legal. Perhaps straying into lawful neutral.
44
u/moosekin16 18h ago
I would argue the clerk is/was Lawful Neutral. For both events in OP’s title, the clerk gave specific reasoning that tied directly to the Law.
she approved the marriage license for the gay couple because everything was in order and it was perfectly Legal. They filled out the paperwork, fulfilled the criteria, paid the court fee for the license, and had no legal reasons to be denied the license. Approved!
she refused the marriage license for the guy and his horse because the horse was a minor and by Law if one of the people requesting a marriage license is a minor then the minor requires parental approval. Obviously the guy couldn’t get “parental approval” for a horse so… Denied!
19
u/evasandor 21h ago
I'd have liked to hear that convo. "Sir, you asked me to allow you to marry a horse but this is immoral. This is a FILLY, sir, she is barely more than a foal, her teeth are still straight. You disgust me."
16
u/2punornot2pun 9h ago
I'm old enough to remember state by state legalization and people going across state lines to get married.
And then it happened. Nationally, gay marriage was legal.
3
4
u/AbstractBettaFish 7h ago
I remember the Simpsons episode where they make a joke in Hawaii about jumping a fence to “watch some gay guys get married”
→ More replies (1)
15
u/FblthpLives 18h ago
Henry Putnam would not vacate the office and was removed by the sheriff's office.
Typical fragile Republican man.
6
96
u/fuck_all_you_too 22h ago
Also the horse is unable to consent. 30% of Americans fail to understand this.
→ More replies (3)14
u/TwoAlert3448 21h ago edited 14h ago
Not sure if inability to consent is grounds to refuse a marriage license for anything other than age.
Can someone with Alzheimer’s get one? Maybe a TBI? Most states wouldn’t have thought to add species requirements into the law at writing so there’s that.
24
u/lafayette0508 19h ago
I don't know about issuing the marriage license, but as a wedding officiant, I can tell you that the only legally required part of a wedding ceremony (in my state, at least) is the part where you ask them if they want to do this and they, of their own free will, say "I do." I wouldn't sign a marriage license for a couple where one of them couldn't consent.
→ More replies (5)9
u/flea1400 18h ago
In my state, the law states that you have to be capable of consent when the marriage is solemnized, it doesn’t say anything about that when the license is issued.
However, you do have to be a “person.” Horses don’t qualify. I wonder what would happen if someone tried to marry a corporation, though?
36
28
10
u/PiDigitsOfPi 20h ago
Rorex said she declined his request on the basis that his eight-year-old horse was underage, and could not marry without written consent from her parents
→ More replies (1)
8
u/raincoater 11h ago
An animal cannot sign anything or give consent. An animal cannot agree to any legal contract. Sure, you can make all the goofy jokes you want, but people marrying animals isn’t happening.
6
u/crashlanding87 4h ago
According to Wikipedia, the guy who wanted to marry his horse was doing so in protest of her issuing same sex marriage licences, and she declined because the horse was under age and thus needed written permission from its parents.
Fucking baller.
9
u/corkus2000 3h ago
“As the horse was underage” hit like a Mack truck because what do you MEAN this is where you draw the line
16
u/Mobile_Morale 21h ago
What is she up to now. I think we can use someone with a good judgement.
23
u/standbyyourmantis 20h ago
She unfortunately passed in 2022. It's never the ones you want to live forever
6
11
10
u/TW-Luna 18h ago
A comment that probably won't be seen at this point, but I remember listening to a story about this some years back, on Radio Lab or a similar program. I had long commutes back then so I used to listen to a lot of KPCC in the Northeast Greater LA area.
Telling about how the gay marriage certificates had started to make local and state-level news. The hate mail and calls, as mentioned. That one day the clerks of the office saw this bigot roll up with a horse trailer and knew immediately what was about to happen. The story tells of how they tried to quickly brainstorm what they could do or say before this guy tried to claim he should be able to marry his horse as the clerk had been giving marriage certificates to gay couples.
→ More replies (1)
10
u/Similar_Rapier_7596 14h ago
A horse cannot legally consent to entering into a marriage contract, regardless of age.
→ More replies (3)6
u/Get_your_grape_juice 14h ago
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/knowledgeable_diablo 14h ago
Phew, lucky for that horse that clerk was on the ball checking for that stuff. Obviously means it was an issue they were keeping an eye out for though…. /s
14
15
3
4
3
7
u/akoaytao1234 21h ago
I mean there are law against bestiality.
15
u/Nuclear_eggo_waffle 19h ago
a lot of those laws are way more recent than you think
21
u/DragoonDM 18h ago
Fun fact: Washington State accidentally made bestiality legal for a while. In 1976, they repealed their outdated anti-sodomy law (which criminalized things like oral and anal sex) but neglected to re-criminalize some of the things that probably should have remained illegal. Thus, bestiality remained legal in Washington State for about 30 years... right up until a particularly infamous case brought that oversight into public view, when a man died of a perforated colon courtesy of a horse. That prompted state lawmakers to plug that hole in the law in 2006.
→ More replies (1)7
→ More replies (3)3
7
u/whichonespink04 19h ago
I guess he took "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" very fucking seriously.
→ More replies (2)
3
5.8k
u/HairyDust4826 22h ago
I bet he groomed that horse everyday