Congratulations to Scott and Aaron

I don't know if you've heard about this story in Utah right now, but a federal judge struck down Utah's Amendment 3 which said that marriage was only legal between a man and a woman.  The state is currently rushing to have a stay put on the ruling before they can appeal in a higher court, but in the mean time same sex couples in the state have been flooding county offices to get licenses and to get married.  One of the more famous people has been Jim Dabakis, a Utah state senator, and his partner Stephen Justensen who were actually married by the Salt Lake Mayor but the marriage more personal to me was the one of my college friend Scott to his long time partner Aaron.  I've been following their saga via facebook texts.  On Friday they left work early and ran to the country office only to not make the cut because the line was so long.  On Saturday they were going to try to get in at Weber County but the office suddenly announced it would not be performing marriages.  They knew there was a very short window of opportunity to get married this morning before the state tried to push the stay through and Scott spent much of Sunday trying not to worry, but to hedge their bets they got in line at 3 am my time...1 am theirs.  At 5:49 their time they posted pictures of themselves freezing outside.  At 6 am they were finally inside.  At 9:50 am their time we got the post that they were now married.  I am overjoyed for them.  We are talking about a couple that celebrated their 8th anniversary just two months ago.  What a marvelous Christmas gift this was for them, as well as the many other couples who were able to join them this day.  I hope people don't think that this is some kind of political stunt.  We are talking about a couple who have been together, loving each other, taking care of one another for almost a decade.  These are not people who get married just to try and score political points. These are people who get married to make a personal point.  When I married Dr. J in that same state, I was a dingbat 21 year old who had never lived on her own marrying a guy she'd known 6 months.  Sometimes I find it shocking that all it took was a piece of paper and $50 and someone decided that we were qualified to tie the knot.  We were just two naive kids, but somehow we've managed to make a pretty nice life for ourselves.  I have no doubt these two will do nothing less and probably much more!  Congrats to Scott and Aaron, may your life continue to be full of happiness and great blessings!!  If you want to know more, you can actually see them waiting in line along with lots of other happy couples on the online Deseret News story here.  You can also find some really wonderful pictures here, taken by Pamela Berry.

picture by Pamela Berry