5/20: After Three-Day Wait Mass. Couples Flock To Wed

After Three-Day Wait Mass. Couples Flock To Wed
by Jennifer Peter
The Associated Press

Posted: May 20, 2004 5:04 pm. ET

(Boston, Massachusetts) The Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie had barely retreated down the aisle with her wife of five minutes when she donned her white robes and got back to work, helping to marry dozens of other gay couples during a full day of back-to-back weddings at the Arlington Street Church.

``OK, I'm ready for my next couple!'' said Harvie, 46, senior minister at the Unitarian Universalist church since 1989, who married her partner of seven years, Kem Morehead, in a ceremony officiated by Rabbi Howard Berman.

So began a marathon day of weddings at the church in Boston's Back Bay which planned to marry nearly 50 couples on Thursday and at chapels, parks and on beaches across the state, as a mandatory three-day waiting period expired for couples who obtained the nation's first gay marriage license applications on Monday. (In Depth Coverage) Dozens of other couples that got a court waiver of the waiting period have already been married.

The new round of nuptials came as Gov. Mitt Romney took the first steps toward blocking city and town clerks from issuing marriage licenses to out-of-state gay couples, which the Republican governor says is prohibited by state law.(story) Attorney General Tom Reilly said the governor's office was referring a ``handful'' of cases to him regarding out-of-state couples who received licenses, but Reilly would not say whether he planned to prosecute the couples or the clerks.

The legal maneuverings on Beacon Hill didn't stop gay couples including some from out of state from getting married on Thursday.

Provincetown, one of four municipalities that have openly defied the governor by issuing licenses to out-of-state couples, hosted the weddings of couples from as far away as Florida.

``I feel sorry for him,'' Pamela Jarvis, 46, of Baltimore, said of the governor after marrying, Kathleen Bieler, her partner of two years.

In Northampton, Joan and Kim Williams became ``legally recognized life partners'' on a quiet side of Look Park near a bubbling fountain. Dressed in blue suits, the couple of 13 years held hands and exchanged vows before their 4-year-old daughter, 1-year-old son and Kim's parents.

``In my lifetime, I never envisioned this as a possibility,'' said Kim Williams, a 48-year-old stay-at home mom. ``We've been really overwhelmed by this.''

It was a moment that her father, Jack Arbuckle, also once never imagined.

``Thirteen years ago, I was adamantly opposed to this,'' he said. ``But as I've grown older and wiser, I've also grown more accepting.''

Under the shade of a tree at Provincetown's Town Hall, two justices of the peace performed at least a dozen weddings Thursday morning for couples who had waited out the three-day period.

Along Commercial Street, the town's main road, newlyweds Cheryl Andrews, chairwoman of the Provincetown Board of Selectmen, and her wife, Jennifer Germack, drove a red convertible Mustang past Town Hall. The couple had just been married at a local nursing home where Andrews' father lives.

At the Arlington Street Church, the newly married Harvie conferred quietly with her next customers Annie Gauger and Cindy MacKenzie in a pew as Berman presided over the wedding of David Wakely, 59, and Lewis Stein, 57.

``Marriage is a vital social institution,'' Berman said, reading from the landmark Supreme Judicial Court decision that legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts. ``The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society.''

Harvie, who made a point of referring to Morehead as her wife about a dozen times within the first minutes of their marriage, said she was not confident this day would come, even when she was waiting in line at Cambridge City Hall on Sunday night.

``We still thought someone would say to us, 'Oh, you're two girls. That isn't allowed,''' Harvie said. ``We never thought we'd live to see this day.''

©Associated Press 2004