The first known same-sex marriage announcement to be published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette appeared in the statewide newspaper last week.
In the Sunday High Profile section on July 5, the newspaper noted the “nuptial vows” exchanged between Sommer Green and Reagan Winkles of Sherwood, along with a photo of the two women. The announcement was placed between those of two opposite-sex couples.
The wedding fell on the same day — June 26 — as the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which found that the states must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That ruling led to the newspaper breaking from its tradition of not including those marriages in the weddings section.
Deputy Editor Frank Fellone said the newspaper’s decision to publish the announcement was based on its being a “legal” marriage in the state after the ruling.
“I would describe our official policy as short and succinct. For many years our position was if it’s not legal in Arkansas, we respectfully decline to publish it,” Fellone said.
But now that same-sex marriage is legal in the state, the paper will allow those announcements in its pages. So far, no complaints from readers have made their way to Fellone’s office.
Fellone said that the newspaper has had a slightly different policy for licenses issued by the Pulaski County clerk. For a brief period after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza struck down the state’s same-sex marriage ban in May 2014 and before the state Supreme Court issued a stay a few days later, dozens of couples flocked to the courthouse to obtain licenses.
The newspaper did what it had done in the past and published the entire list of licenses provided by the clerk, Fellone said.
In the future, Fellone said, submissions to the weddings section will be treated the same, whether they come from a man and a woman or a same-sex couple. “I don’t see any reason to make any kind of differentiation from one way or the other,” Fellone said.
But he noted that space is always limited in the paper and that some months are busier than others.
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