CRESTVIEW — Evenings at the Hughes-Herbert residence look much like those for other two-parent households.
As Sara Hughes and Lecricia Herbert's daughters scamper around, one parent prepares supper while the other tends to home maintenance.
The difference is, until Tuesday, Hughes, a medical office worker, and Herbert, a medical dispatcher, could not lawfully marry.
“We have always talked about getting married, but never finalized anything because we didn’t know what will happen here,” Hughes, a Crestview resident, said. “Then it just kinda happened out the blue.”
The sudden legalization of same-sex marriage also surprised Trea Snider and Jonathon Hanline.
“We knew it (same-sex marriage) was being talked about, but we never expected it to go through,” Snider said.
“I was expecting it to have to go through the courts fully, like the U.S. Supreme Court, but it came a lot sooner than we expected,” Hanline said.
COURTHOUSE'S BAN 'UNFORTUNATE'
Snider, an Air Force Reservist and restaurant server, said he and Hanline, an assistant manager at a Destin store, have discussed marriage, but don’t want to rush into it until they are ready.
They're leaning toward a traditional church wedding; although "it won’t be until at least another year before we get married … we’re both excited that we finally have the chance," Snider said.
Hughes said she and Herbert considered marrying out of state, perhaps in Philadelphia, where she has family, until Florida marriages became available.
Now, the couple are weighing more local options.
One thing is certain: Snider and Hanline, and Hughes and Hebert won't exchange vows in the Okaloosa County Courthouse.
Both couples said they are disappointed in area clerks of court, including Okaloosa's J.D. Peacock, who abruptly stopped performing courthouse weddings when gay marriage became legal.
“I think it’s really kind of a crappy thing to do,” Snider said. “They didn’t do that when interracial marriages were legalized.”
“It’s unfortunate that happened, but we can work around it,” Hughes said.
FINDING A PLACE TO WED
Same-sex couples now have the law on their side, but finding a Crestview area church to marry in will pose a challenge.
The Rev. Gene Strickland, the Crestview Area Ministerial Association's president, said that in his own Southern Baptist denomination, “we include in our faith that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.
“That is probably the stance of most conservative Christian denominations."
Msgr. Michael Tugwell of Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in Crestview referred to a statement from the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, which stated, "The conjugal nature of marriage between a man and a woman has provided for millennia the basis for norms of marital exclusivity and permanence that made possible stable families necessary for human flourishing."
The statement said the new law will affect many areas, including family law, employment law, trusts and estates, healthcare, tax law and property law. "Redefinition of marriage will have implications not yet fully understood," it stated.
Some mainstream religions, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have approved same-sex marriages, but left the decision up to individual churches.
The Rev. Mark Broadhead, interviewed in June when the denomination approved gay marriages, said whether his Crestview and Laurel Hill churches allow same-sex weddings will be a matter for contemplative prayer.
“I have gay friends that may or may not one day ask if I will do their wedding ceremony,” Broadhead said. “I will need to be in deep prayer about that so that God may provide me with the right guidance for me to answer.”
CHALLENGES REMAIN
Though Hughes' and Herbert's family and friends know they are gay, and despite having the right to marry like any other couple, they still attract second glances when together in public.
“If we go out anywhere, we get nothing but stared at and we get treated differently,” Hughes said. “My fiancée looks gay, so when I’m by myself, people treat me 100 percent differently.”
Still, just having the right to marry has made a difference in their lives, Snider said.
“I feel less like a second-class citizen now,” he said.
Despite the challenges, both couples said they would like to have children. Hughes and Herbert would like to add a child of their own to the two girls Hughes brought to the family from a previous relationship.
Snider and Hanline also have discussed being parents, but for now, said they're content raising Toby, their Yorkshire terrier. The couple will soon add Molly, a Shih-tzu and dachshund mix, to their household.
As for the future, Snider anticipates the legal rights that married life can bring. That includes hospital visitation rights, which has always been a concern for gay rights activists.
During emergencies, "hospitals may restrict visitation rights to a narrow interpretation of family that excludes those not legally or biologically related to the patient," the Human Rights Campaign's website states. "Similarly, state laws around medical decision-making often limit these rights to a patient’s biological family members when no documentation is designating a surrogate decision maker."
On Tuesday, that concern vanished for Florida's same-sex couples hoping to one day marry.
“I’m just really excited that I can spend the rest of my life with the person that I love," Snider said.
"And not having to worry that if something happens, I wouldn’t be allowed to be there for him."
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Local same-sex couples suddenly faced with opportunity to wed
