Same-sex couples in the Golden Triangle were able to receive marriage licenses for the first time Monday, but none were issued.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood issued a letter to state circuit clerks Monday that said they should go ahead with issuing marriage licenses in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Friday that made same-sex marriage legal across in all 50 states.
But not all counties went ahead. Officials in three of Mississippi’s most populous counties — DeSoto, Jackson and Jones — told The Associated Press on Monday they were not issuing licenses to same-sex couples. The Campaign for Southern Equality, which represented plaintiffs in a lawsuit that challenged Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage, says more than half of counties say they will issue licenses, though in many places no same-sex couple have asked.
There were no same-sex marriage licenses issued to couples in Lowndes, Clay or Oktibbeha counties Monday. However, all three counties told The Dispatch they were prepared to issue licenses to gay couples.
Lowndes County Circuit Clerk Haley Salazar told The Dispatch on Monday that there remain issues with the state marriage forms from the bureau of vital statistics, which require slight tweaking in language to include same-sex couples, by removing “bride” and “groom” from the application. While Jackson County used this as a reason to not issue licenses until the form is corrected, Salazar said Lowndes County will not.
“We will not deny any requests for licenses,” Salazar said. “We will just correct the state form manually.”
In Oktibbeha County, the circuit clerk’s office received phone calls asking if they were issuing same-sex licenses, but the only couple to register for marriage in Starkville on Monday consisted of a man and a woman.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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