One Saturday, three hundred marriages
A ruling on Friday, weddings on Saturday, a halt in the afternoon. In between, more than three hundred couples said yes.
On 22 March 2014, four county offices in Michigan opened their doors even though it was Saturday. Same-sex couples were queuing outside, some with children, some with flowers, all in a hurry. Because nobody knew how long the window would stay open.
The evening before, federal judge Bernard Friedman in Detroit had declared the state's marriage ban unconstitutional. He rejected the request of Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette to suspend the ruling pending appeal. Schuette immediately turned to the next instance.
The county administrations of Ingham, Oakland, Washtenaw and Muskegon were faster. Shortly after eight in the morning, Glenna DeJong and Marsha Caspar said "I do" at the courthouse in Mason. After twenty-seven years together, they were now Michigan's first married same-sex couple. They did not go home. They stayed and signed as witnesses for the couples who came after them. Elsewhere, whole groups were married at once so as not to lose a minute.
The rush was justified. That same day, the appeals court in Cincinnati temporarily halted further weddings. By then, more than three hundred couples had married.
What followed was a legal paradox. Governor Rick Snyder confirmed that the marriages had been lawfully concluded but denied them state benefits. The federal government in Washington, by contrast, recognised them. The civil rights organisation ACLU went to court on behalf of several couples, including DeJong and Caspar.
The big question was finally answered by the Supreme Court in June 2015, which opened marriage throughout the United States. Michigan was one of the four states whose cases the court decided together. For the couples from that Saturday morning, more than a year of limbo came to an end.