Pueblo County clerk resumes issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples

Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz resumed issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday after the Supreme Court decided not to take up the issue.

Colorado was among six states bound by the same appellate rulings that the Supreme Court declined to review, meaning the lower-court rulings striking gay-marriage bans now stand.

Pueblo County originally began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on July 11 but stopped less than two weeks later after a judge ordered Denver County to do the same. Forty marriage licenses were issued in Pueblo County back in July.

Earlier Monday, Republican Attorney General John Suthers said his office “will file motions to expedite the lifting of the stays” in federal and state courts. He said he’ll advise clerks when to begin issuing licenses.

But Ortiz didn’t wait for Suthers’ notice.

“I don’t believe that the attorney general has it in his power to tell us when or when we cannot start following the Constitution of the United States of America,” he said.

Leona Rogers and Stacey Nowlin were the only couple to get a marriage license in Pueblo County on Monday.

“We came the last time that they opened it and I was in the hospital so when we got here it was too late,” Rogers said.

The couple said obtaining a marriage license is critical for them because Rogers has cancer.

“She’s a seven-time cancer survivor. This is her eighth round,” Nowlin said of Rogers.

“I’m terminal,” Rogers said.

“She’s terminal. So this is very important to us,” Nowlin said.

Ortiz said he wasn’t surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the cases on gay marriage.

“I thought after 40 courts ruled the same way that it was unconstitutional, any kind of marriage ban, I felt like the Supreme Court was probably not going to hear it,” he said.

Stephanie Martinez and her partner Jessie Finau were the first gay couple to receive a marriage license in Pueblo County in July. Martinez said the Supreme Court’s decision brings her peace of mind.

“What it does is it makes us not worry anymore that she’s going to be taken off any benefits, or that if God forbid anything happens to either one of us, that we don’t have that worry anymore,” Martinez said.

But the pastor of Faith Baptist Church, Clay Austin, isn’t rejoicing at the news.

“I was very surprised because it is an important case for the court to make a decision on since it’s as controversial as it is” he said.

Colorado voters banned gay marriage in 2006.