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Warren County Among A Handful Still Not Issuing Gay Marriage Certificates

Jimmy Emerson
/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/6925812450

In one of the state’s least populous counties, the clerk is still waiting to allow same-sex marriages.

Despite a Wednesday ruling by a U.S. District Court judge, Warren County Clerk Deb Hiatt says she’d need an order from a local judge before she’d go forward with doctoring a state form that allows for one man and one woman in each union.

Hiatt says she would feel like she was duping her constituents if she married a couple and then the order to allow gay marriages was stayed.

“So okay, you’re going to be married for three days and then it’s going to go into limbo,” she says.

Hiatt says no couples have come to her office wanting to solemnify their same-sex partnership, so she hasn’t yet had to make the decision whether to allow the procedure.

But when pressed, she indicated she might be amenable to allowing the marriage. Warren County has just 8,500 residents and Hiatt says the community is so tight-knit that she’d have trouble looking a gay couple she married in the eye if their marriage was suddenly in doubt after the fact.

Hiatt says she’s waiting to hear whether a judge stays this week’s ruling. If that doesn’t happen, it could open the door for gay marriages in the county.

She also says she’s worried about the debates and confusion that would be caused in the area of awarding government benefits to same-sex partners.

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