Same-sex couples in Washington start taking wedding vows

BY RACHEL LA CORTE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- Scores of same-sex couples crowded Seattle City Hall for a day of wedding ceremonies on Sunday, the first day they could marry after the state's voter-approved gay marriage law took effect.

While numerous weddings were taking place across the state, both private and public, the city hall weddings were the largest public event, with about 140 couples taking part. The city set up five separate chapels to accommodate the revelers. Starting at 10 a.m., cheers and applause regularly broke out as another couple's marriage became official. Weddings at city hall were to continue through 5 p.m.

After couples married, they exited city hall, greeted by a steady rain and by dozens of supporters who cheered them with shouts of "congratulations" and flowers as they descended a large staircase down to the street.

"I don't even have words for this," said Caren Goldenberg of Seattle, who married her partner of seven years, Casey Evans. "It just makes me really proud of my city."

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Video | Seattle.gov live streams Washington weddings, receptions of same-sex couples

On the web:

Live streaming: The Seattle Channel will be live streaming from two locations in the interior of City Hall from 10 am until 5 pm on Sunday, December 9, 2012 as 140 couples get married.

Mary Matalin: 'The greatest threat to civil order is heterosexuals who don’t get married and are making babies'

Republican strategist Mary Matalin Sunday on ABC-TV's This Week:

“There are important constitutional, biological, theological, ontological questions relative to homosexual marriage, but people who live in the real world say the greatest threat to civil order is heterosexuals who don’t get married and are making babies,” Matalin said.
 
“That’s an epidemic in crisis proportions. That is irrefutably more problematic for our culture than homosexuals getting married,” she added.

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