Gay marriages are already taking place in states from Georgia to Texas where they had been banned until the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage a constitutional right Friday, while in Mississippi, officials said same-sex marriages couldn't begin just yet.
Several gay couples have received marriage licenses in Atlanta since the decision came out. One of those couples, Petrina Bloodworth and Emma Foulkes, were wed in a morning ceremony and are the first same-sex couple to be married in Georgia's Fulton County. So says court clerk James Brock.
In Texas, two men who have been together more than five decades were the first to get a license and be married in Dallas Country Friday. Jack Evans, 85, and George Harris, 82, who have been together for 54 years, received their license Friday and were married by Judge Dennise Garcia, a member of their church.
In Travis County, Texas, Gena Dawson and Charlotte Rutherford were the first same-sex couple in the state to receive a marriage license, within two hours of the ruling.
As well, a same-sex marriage license has been issued in Arkansas, another state that banned gay marriage until the Supreme Court weighed in. This was in Faulkner County, almost immediately after the ruling came out.
In Ohio, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley performed a simple ceremony less than two hours after the court's decision was announced.
Whaley told Tim Walsh and Kery Gray: "In hard times, love offers hope." The casually dressed pair repeated vows and moved their rings from their right hands to their left ring fingers.
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The mayor told them: "I declare that you are now husband and husband according to the laws of the state of Ohio."
In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has instructed country clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples immediately. Just last year, Beshear bucked the state's Democratic attorney general and hired private lawyers to defend the state's same-sex marriage ban in court.
In Mississippi, however, Attorney General Jim Hood said same-sex marriages could not take place immediately in the state.
Couples started applying for marriage licenses within moments of Friday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalizes gay marriage nationwide, but Hood said a federal appeals court in New Orleans must first lift a hold on a gay-marriage court case from Mississippi. He didn't know how long that could take.
Two lesbian couples and a gay-rights group, Campaign for Southern Equality, sued Mississippi last year over the state's 1997 law and 2004 voter-approved constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. A federal judge overturned the ban but put marriages on hold while the state appealed.
The states affected by Friday's ruling are: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, most of Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
