In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a federal law forbidding recognition of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. That freed lower court justices including Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza to strike down Arkansas' ten-year-old voter-initiated constitutional ban on same-sex marriage on May 9th, 2014.
Anxious to obtain marriage licenses before the ruling could be stayed, same-sex couples from Arkansas and surrounding states traveled to the only county courthouse in Arkansas open for business on a Saturday in Eureka Springs, joined by family and friends along with state and national media. At 9 a.m., Carroll County Deputy Clerk Lana Gordon unlocked her office and announced to the more than 100 people assembled in the hallway and courthouse steps that she lacked the authority to issue same-sex marriage licenses. When law enforcement stepped forward to secure the facility, the crowd grew agitated.
"You just made a bad mistake for this town!" one woman shouted, another woman sobbing, "I want to go home!"
But shortly after, Carroll County Deputy Clerk Jane Osborn took control of the situation, reopening the shuttered office and cheerfully began processing wedding licenses, handing a certificate to the first couple in line: River Valley residents Jennifer Rambo and Kristin Seaton.
"Here's your pretty little license," Osborn said, smiling.
We spoke with both Jennifer and Kristin Seaton-Rambo earlier this week about that fraught moment.
"I remember when the cop, before he slammed the door, he said, 'Step aside for the normal people to come through!' and that really hit home," she said. "I was like the normal people? I just wanted to be like, 'Hey you know we are the normal people, just like everyone else!'"
Three months earlier, Kristin had proposed to Jennifer, not knowing that a Little Rock judge would soon rule in their favor.
"To know that we could validate that feeling?" she said, "I still get goosebumps talking about it."
After receiving their wedding license, the women were officially married outside the courthouse.
"That was such an incredible day," Jennifer Seaton-Rambo said, visibly emotional. "There was so much that we will never ever forget, the history that was made that day, the people who paved the way. We had people around us who we had never met in our life cheering us on."
This weekend, Jennifer and Kristin Seaton-Rambo will join others who were licensed and married ten years ago in Eureka Springs at a commemorative ceremony in Basin Park at noon. The event is hosted by the nonprofit Out in Eureka, directed by award-winning LGBTQ+ civil rights activist Jay Wilks. On May 10, 2014, he and Keith Johnston too were licensed to marry.
"My husband and I, we were the 4th same-sex couple married in the South," Wilks said, "and we were the second male couple, married that day."
That historic day continues to reverberate, Wilks says.
"I receive anywhere from 5 to 10 emails a week from couples looking to either resettle in Eureka, move up here, or ask about wedding facilities," he said. "So the word is out, across the country!"
Eureka Springs resident Zeek Taylor, a noted national media spokesperson for Eureka's LGBTQ+ community, will officiate the hour-long casual celebration in Basin Park tomorrow, delivering a speech, marrying couples, as well as renewing vows. Sheet wedding cakes will be served. Taylor and his spouse Dick Titus were the first same-sex male couple in Arkansas to be licensed and married at the Eureka courthouse on May 10th, 2014.
"It was a roller coaster of a day," Taylor said. "A lot of emotions when we were finally allowed to marry — by the graciousness of a county clerk that issued us a license. We'd been engaged for 42 years and I didn't think it would ever happen to us. It was historic, it was something I waited for my entire life. We made history."
And a year later, a narrow majority of U.S. Supreme Court Justices voted to legalize same-sex marriage in all fifty states. Today, LGBTQ+ couples continue to flock to Eureka to be licensed and marry, Taylor says.
"We are known as the 'wedding capital of the mid-South'," he said. "And they know that they'll be welcome here and treated royally here and with love. We say in Eureka Springs 'Love Wins for All!"
But with a majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court currently, in control, LGBTQ+ advocates warn that a ruling by SCOTUS to overturn its 2015 decision to federally legalize same-sex marriage could be taken up as soon as next year.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline by reporters. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
