While hundreds upon hundreds of gay and lesbian couples came out of Massachusetts city halls this week as the first same-sex Americans holding state-sanctioned marriage licenses, two Durham partners continued toward a similar goal in the South.
Richard Mullinax and Perry Pike's momentous lawsuit against Durham County for rejecting their license application was dismissed May 9 in District Court and shifted, on grounds of constitutionality, to Superior Court.
There, the couple will look to garner the same emotional support they had in District Court and pull more legal leverage in their push to overturn increasingly stiff North Carolina restrictions.
"It was something we totally anticipated as a possibility," Cheri Patrick, Mullinax and Pike's attorney, said Wednesday of the Court's decision. "There's a lot of support either way, and, as I told Richard and Perry, no matter what happened we would go on. What I haven't told Richard and Perry yet is that I had planned to go re-file today, but I had been thinking, in light of what's happened in Massachusetts, that I may need to adjust the way we continue."
District Judge Craig Brown prefaced his hearing of the case last week by acknowledging his sympathy for the rights of the gay community, only to continue that it was his legal duty to agree with County Attorney Chuck Kitchen that the case had constitutional implications better suited for Superior Court than the more family-oriented District Court.
"It made me feel that the judicial system works," Mullinax said of Brown's acknowledgment. "My goal and hope is that we are going to find in the judicial system a way that works. In the end, Perry and I don't have anything. At the end of the day, all we have done is said we want it. We don't have it. There's no way to lose when there's no way to win."
Indeed, the couple are the first to go up against a wall of legal, moral and religious resistance that seemed insurmountable until the breakthrough in Massachusetts.
North Carolina's 1995 Defense of Marriage Act strictly denies same-sex marriages, but even the symbolic gesture of obtaining a marriage license has been more difficult for Mullinax and Pike since their application was rejected March 22.
State Senate Republican Minority Leader Jim Forrester--who sponsored the 1996 state law that said North Carolina would not recognize gay marriages performed in other states--proposed a bill May 12 for a referendum on the November ballot to ban same-sex marriages statewide, but he does not see it going anywhere soon.
"We're in the short session up here, which only lasts another six weeks. I'm not very optimistic about it getting passed," he said. "If this bill passed, we wouldn't be having the argument."
Forrester added that he will most likely reintroduce the bill when the Senate's long session starts. But even in the current environment, Kitchen said Mullinax and Pike's prospects for a marriage license don't look good.
"They're not going to get it," Kitchen said. "The state law's very clear on it. It's not legal in any court here. North Carolina doesn't recognize out-of-state marriages, and that's a matter for the legislature to deal with."
Mullinax, a 31-year-old stoneworker who serves as president of the Old North Durham Neighborhood Association, and Pike, 41, who works for the city as an historian, said they will still press on.
Most of the opposition to their case comes from outside of the area--including a motion to intervene filed on behalf of two Durham ministers by a Laurinburg, N.C., firm associated with the Alliance Defense Fund, champions of the religious right.
The couple have gained increasing support from a local community that once feared the two would bring more backlash than civil rights change, but that packed the courthouse last week.
"In the last couple of weeks--because the courtroom was full of gay and straight support that, on a work day, I was kind of blown away--I know there are people who support this," Mullinax said, adding that he had exchanged e-mails with members of the state court system.
Meanwhile, the couple will continue to work within that system and in a suddenly changing landscape for gays in America.
"We're going to see the fallout from Massachusetts, and, depending upon how quickly legal challenges proceed from the top--and I expect them to proceed very quickly--maybe I won't have to finish the challenge," Patrick said. "Maybe it'll be done for me."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.