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HOOD COUNTY (CBSDFW.COM) – Two men who had sued the Hood County clerk for failing to issue them a marriage license received that license this afternoon. Jim Cato and Joe Stapleton were exultant when they left the county annex with the license.
It climaxed a days-long standoff. There were some last-minute hiccups when a clerk apparently designated to handle their request was tied up a few minutes. But on their exit, they told CBS 11 News it really hasn’t come home to them.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” said Jim Cato.
He and his partner received the license about 3:45 p.m. though it was issued about 8 a.m., hours after their attorneys has filed a federal lawsuit against Hood County clerk, Katie Lang. Cato called the delay “humiliating.”
The couple went to the clerk’s office repeatedly for the past 10 days seeking a marriage license but were turned back. Lang did not comment, but her private attorney claimed the hangup last Thursday was from a lack of guidance from the County Attorney about existing paper forms, which appeared gender specific, man and woman. The County Attorney told CBS 11 News she did not receive a request for advice from Lang until she got an e-mail Friday.
Reaction in the courthouse square at the Hood County seat was mixed. Gay rights supporter Adam Davies said, “If you’re a public servant you have to issue a license to whoever’s qualified, and same sex couples are qualified.” But traditional marriage supporter Ruel Garner told CBS 11 News, “I wish they hadn’t done that. Again, I think it’s wrong and I think marriage is between a man and a woman. Always has been, always should be.”
Though Cato and Stapleton were the first gays to have a license issued to, the first to pick up an actual printed document went to Lisa Rozenberg and Ara Jones.
“Very excited. I don’t have to go to another town to get my marriage license,” Rozenberg said. She and Jones showed up earlier in afternoon and signed as applicant-1 and applicant-2. “And I went in there and there were no issues.”
The women were simply identified as applicants, though the men had to mark through a “Mr.” and “M (for Ms or Mrs)” on their application adding to some of the confusion on that first, breakthrough document.
The federal lawsuit will continue, they say, until all couples can get licenses in Hood County and the attorneys who brought the suit for Cato and Stapleton get paid for their work.
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