Ten years ago this week, we were doing some finishing touches on a move to our new house and preparing for the imminent arrival of our second child when we heard that Judge Robert Shelby had issued a historic court ruling that there was a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry in Utah.
After 14 years together, a son in arms and daughter on the way in just a few days, we made the easy decision to get married. We notified the friends and family who we could assemble within the hour, and we headed to the Salt Lake County Clerk’s office.
Dec. 20, 2013, will forever be a happy anniversary for the hundreds of same-sex couples in Utah who married that day or in the two weeks that followed (before the ruling was temporarily put on hold). It will also go down as a critical day in our nation’s history, marking the first federal court ruling on the freedom to marry since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Windsor v. United States striking down the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act.” The Utah ruling landed like a lightning bolt, opening the eyes of Americans all across the country that the freedom to marry for all was possible, even in a ruby red state.
Our state had long been on a journey when it came to same-sex couples and the freedom to marry. Around a decade prior, in November 2004, a cruel constitutional amendment banning marriage and any form of legal respect for same-sex relationships was shoved through at the ballot, passing with 65% of the vote. We’ve certainly come a long way since then — polling now shows a seismic shift in public opinion, with 72% of Utahns saying in 2022 that they support marriage for same-sex couples.
Leadership from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which a majority of Utahns belong to, has also happily changed its tune on the freedom to marry. Despite Mormons pouring significant funding into state-level bans, including in California, Church leadership expressed support for the Respect for Marriage Act, the federal law that passed just last year in the United States Congress. Officials even attended the signing ceremony. Our state’s Republican Senator, Mitt Romney, voted in favor of the bill, joining every Democrat in the Senate and 11 other Republican Senators.
We are honored to witness this progress in our state, and this week we’re happy to reflect on how that day 10 years ago brought much to our lives for which we are grateful, having seen the world before marriage and after. Initially, when we adopted our children, we were forced to gain temporary residency in California, going to great expense and effort to grow our family. That is no longer necessary. Previously, employers did not always cover us both under family medical insurance. But after marriage equality, these divisions faded away, since laws that protected every other married couple applied to us, too.
Contrary to the dire warnings of some pundits, the skies didn’t fall. Instead, opinions changed and support for marriage equality grew.
Marriage equality meant we no longer had to justify our relationship through how many years we had been together, the property we jointly owned or the kids we were raising together. We were married. No longer did we have to distinguish between the relationship of Brandon’s law partners and his home partner. We were husbands. We now had instant and valuable community recognition of our family and our relationship.
Most astounding and vital is that our children have grown up almost entirely in a world where their family’s legitimacy is clear and understood, equally, with a (relatively) secure legal blanket around us.
Even still, we live with the heaviness of knowing the work continues. The opposition to our family’s existence has regrouped, and our community’s culture, uniqueness and safety, particularly those of our trans friends and intersectional communities of color, continue to be attacked.
What we can hopefully learn from Utah’s evolution on the freedom to marry is that our families and community are worth fighting for. Now we have 10 years of evidence, and — despite it being an odd way to justify love and marriage — we continue to have public opinion on our side.
Our marriage is here to stay, and that’s a powerful anniversary gift that we’re grateful for.
(Photo courtesy of Madison Larsen) Brandon Mark and Weston Clark pose with their family.
Weston Clark and Brandon Mark are a married same-sex couple raising two children in Salt Lake City.
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