Family Values

DES MOINES, Iowa - Same-sex marriage was legal here for less than 24 hours before the county won a stay of a judge's order on Friday, a tiny window of opportunity that allowed two men to make history but left dozens of other couples disappointed after a frantic rush to the altar.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, Judge Robert Hanson ordered Polk County officials to accept marriage license requests from same-sex couples, but he granted the stay at about 12:30 p.m. Friday. By then 27 same-sex couples had filed requests, but only Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan of Ames had actually gotten their license.

In the front yard of the Rev. Mark Stringer, pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines, they become the only same-sex couple wed in the U.S. outside of Massachusetts, where some 8,000 such couples have tied the knot.

Stringer concluded the ceremony by saying, "This is a legal document and you are married." The men then kissed and hugged.

"This is it. We're married. I love you," Fritz told McQuillan after the ceremony.

There simply is no coherent argument opposed to same-sex marriage, and it's just a matter of time before it's legal nation-wide, as it is in Canada and many European nations.

And when it is legal nation-wide, that'll be another tool of hate stripped from the Jesus freaks.. and if the immigration issue ever gets settled, well, then they really won't have any more hatred to sell. It'll be interesting to see what they do then to get people in the pews. God needs his BMW after all.