After years of legal wrangling, a contentious fight at the ballot box, and one final tense day of watching and waiting, same-sex marriage is now legal in the state of North Carolina.
The ruling came down around 5:30 on Friday afternoon, from District Court Judge Max Cogburn in Asheville. Following an earlier ruling from the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Cogburn ruled that North Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.
Cogburn was one of two judges who were deliberating whether to rule on Friday. The other, William Osteen in Greensboro, asked for additional arguments on Monday; but Cogburn stayed beyond 5:00 to issue his ruling before the weekend. Most register of deeds offices were closed by then, including the Orange County office in Hillsborough, but the registers of deeds in Buncombe and Wake County kept their offices open late – and same-sex couples began marrying almost instantly.
Orange County’s Register of Deeds office will be open again on Monday.
Shortly before Judge Cogburn issued his ruling, WCHL’s Aaron Keck spoke with Carrboro Mayor Lydia Lavelle – who’s one of only a few openly gay elected officials in North Carolina, and who just celebrated her ten-year anniversary last month. (Carrboro, she notes, established the state’s first domestic partner registry on October 11, 1994 – almost exactly 20 years to the day before today’s decision.)
Judge Cogburn’s ruling Friday came after a last-ditch effort by Republican State Senator Phil Berger and State Representative Thom Tillis to intervene in the case. Tillis and Berger’s intervention delayed a ruling from Judge Osteen in Greensboro, but in Asheville, Cogburn denied their motion to intervene.
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