Will Delco Follow in Montco's Footsteps of Same-Sex Marriage?

Dozens of couples have made the trek to Montgomery County since Register of Wills Bruce Hanes began giving marriage licenses to same-sex couples  on Wednesday.

Will Delaware County be following suit? Not anytime soon, it seems.

Register of Wills Hugh A. Donaghue said he will not do so unless the state’s ban on such unions is changed, according to the Delco Times.

“The reason being that we are going to follow the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Donaghue told the newspaper on Thursday. “I’m sworn to uphold the Pennsylvania Constitution and also to uphold the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ... (which) says marriage is defined as essentially a civil contract between a man and a woman who hold themselves out as husband and wife.”

According to the publication, "Donaghue said his office had received two recent inquiries about marriage licenses for same-sex couples — one from a man on Tuesday and another from a woman on Wednesday. Each was told the office would not issue a license under those circumstances, he said."

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, to get married,” Penn Valley resident Charles Burrus told Montgomery Media on Friday after he and partner of 13 years Sander Schlichter were granted their license to wed.  

Narberth resident Gabriela Assagioli and parter Lynn Zeitlin also received their license on Friday, while Wynnewood's Sasha Esther Ballen and Diana Lynn Spagnuolo got theirs on Wednesday. The Wynnewood couple was the second same-sex in state history to receive the license to wed.

The paperwork was filled out against a backdrop of protest. Conservative group Pro-Life Coalition of Pennsylvania held a pray-in at the Register of Wills' Norristown office on Friday, opposing the county's move to grant the licenses and encouraging the same-sex applicants to, in the words of one protestor, "come to the truth that God is truth."

For their part, the couples involved said they were unaffected by the commotion. 

"I would defend their right to be here,” Zeitlin, a lawyer, told the Main Line Times. “I don’t like what they have to say, but I give them every right to say it.”

But while they can brush off the protestors, another force might prove more difficult for the historic pairs to overcome: the courts.

According to Mary Catherine Roper, an ACLU attorney who's leading the effort to get Pennsylvania's gay marriage ban struck down, the new unions will face a period of prolonged legal limbo. 

“Any [gay or lesbian couple] who is going to get a marriage license [in Pennsylvania] has to be aware that there is going to be some legal uncertainty for some time."

Roper added that the thorniest legal problem facing the couples isn't the fact that they are gay, but that Register of Wills Bruce Hanes defied state law in granting them their marriage licenses. In the past, Roper said courts have voided marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples against state law.

“When we have seen this before in other states it has resulted in court challenges and sometimes in the retroactive annulment of the marriages,“ the attorney said, pointing out that while the California Supreme Court determined same-sex couples have a right to marry, in a previous decision the court ruled that local officials don’t have the authority to bypass state marriage law.

Tom Sunnergren contributed to this report.