Steven Vaught and Scott Cogar were making plans to get married in Washington, D.C., when same-sex marriage became legal in Virginia last year.
The couple had been together more than 20 years, and they didn’t think they would ever be allowed to marry. They had already made one trip to visit wedding locations, and then on Oct. 6, 2014, the state made it legal.
“When the ruling came down it was unbelievable,” Vaught said. “We were overjoyed and instantly said we can do it here, now.”
They scrapped their D.C wedding plans and were married in March in a Newport News ballroom decorated in Tiffany blue and gray, adorned with over 500 white roses and lilies.
“It was storybook,” Vaught said.
Vaught, 47, and Cogar, 45, were one of 268 same-sex couples who received marriage licenses on the Peninsula over the past year, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health’s division of vital records. The division provided data from October 2014 to August of this year. Numbers for September and October were not available.
Newport News had the largest number of licenses issued —122. Among other cities and counties, Hampton had 59; Williamsburg/James City County, 49; York County/Poquoson, 20; Gloucester, 12; and Isle of Wight, 6.
At last
“We were together for 25 years,” Vaught said. “We kind of just went through life as a couple, but to be able to actually have the ceremony, have the 50 people there from all walks of our lives, to actually stand up there and have people cry and support us made the moment perfect.”
When Vaught and Cogar applied for their marriage license, they recall people inside the Hampton Circuit Court clerk’s office applauding.
“To see that in Hampton, Virginia, is not what we expected,” Vaught said. “Two people cried in line when we got our license. That made us realize it was real.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision not to decide whether couples can get married in Virginia opened the door for same-sex couples across the state to make wedding plans. The high court’s refusal to render an opinion allowed a lower court’s ruling, which struck down the state’s gay marriage ban, to stand. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all states.
The Rev. Cory Newell performed Vaught and Cogar’s wedding ceremony at Kiln Creek Golf Club and Resort. Newell has officiated about 100 same-sex wedding ceremonies on the Peninsula in the past year.
Newell recalls marrying one couple who had been together for more than 30 years. He said when they walked down the aisle, he could feel the “weight” of their long journey together.
“All 30 years just pressed down that aisle way,” Newell said. “I had to take a moment to catch my own emotions a bit.”
Newell says the same-sex marriage ceremonies are different to him than other ceremonies because the couples have often been together for many years.
“When dealing with same-sex couples, it’s really never a marriage day,” Newell said. “They have pledged themselves to each other in whatever way they could and then finally it’s become legal. It was affirmation of how ever many years they have been together.”
Equal
Robin Clark, 34, and Carolyn Fetter, 48, have been together for 10 years. Their wedding was in May in front of 250 people at the home of Clark’s family in Gloucester, with each bride walked down the aisle by her father.
The couple said that although they could have gone outside the state to get married before it became legal in Virginia, that wasn’t something they wanted. They believed eventually same-sex marriage would be legal in the state.
“We wanted to get married in our home state, where we were both born and raised,” Clark said. “This is where we wanted to be. If we were going to have rights, we wanted them to be where we were.”
But shortly after hearing the news, the women say they got cold feet about sealing their long-term relationship with a marriage license. Even after being together for 10 years, they were a bit nervous and were cautioned about marriage from others who said relationships often go downhill after saying “I do.”
“When you have 10 years together, that isn’t going to change with a piece of paper,” said Clark, who says they are just as close since marrying.
The license might not have been necessary to validate the standing they already had as a couple, but it did make them feel equal.
“Walking down the street, you wouldn’t know we were being treated like second-class citizens,” Clark said. “It’s nice to just walk down the street and see a happy married couple — I’m one of those couples now. Before, I had a tinge of jealousy because we wanted that and couldn’t have it. Now, it’s right.”
More battles to fight
Two days after same-sex marriage became legal in Virginia, Bryan Hess, 45, and Jay Moore, 57, went down to the Newport News courthouse and got marriage licenses. But they kept quiet for months.
“One reason we didn’t immediately let people know was because the Supreme Court was still looming,” Hess said. “There was some fear that by the end of the Supreme Court term, we might all be unmarried.”
When the Supreme Court finally decided same-sex marriage would be legal everywhere, the worry went away.
“It sort of helped establish full personhood, we could finally feel ourselves being equal in this country, which we could not before,” Moore said.
The couple have been together for nearly 25 years and the ruling was about more than a marriage license and wedding bands. They wanted the legal protections afforded to all couples.
“It’s something I really kind of never expected to see in my lifetime,” Hess said. “One day you wake up, look at the news and find the world has changed out from under you.”
Moore says that while same-sex marriage was a long time coming, there are still other battles for the gay community that are still being fought.
“While it has helped me feel better that my civil standing has been reaffirmed, I still believe there are a lot of fights for gay rights that have not yet been won,” said Moore, noting discrimination in the workplace, and refusal to serve gay patrons based on religious beliefs. “These continue to be threats and these are things I thought the movement would tackle first. Those are battles that still need to be fought.”
Speed can be reached by phone at 757-247-4778.
Same-sex marriage licenses
Gloucester: 12
Hampton: 59
Isle of Wight: 6
Newport News: 122
Williamsburg/James City County: 49
York County/Poquoson: 20
Source: Virginia Department of Health, Division of Vital Statistics
