MASON, MI (AP)-- An appeals court has reinstituted Michigan's constitutional ban on gay marriage, but not before several hundred same-sex couples rushed to the state's county clerk's offices to get hitched.
The order on Saturday by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati to at least temporarily restore the ban that Michigan voters approved in 2004 came after Glenna DeJong, 53, and Marsha Caspar, 51, of Lansing, were the first on Saturday to arrive at the Ingham County Courthouse in Mason. DeJong and Caspar, who have been together for 27 years, received their license and were married by Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum.
Similar nuptials followed, at times en masse, in at least four of Michigan's 83 counties. Oakland, Muskegon, Ingham and Washtenaw counties issued more than 300 marriage licenses to same-sex couples Saturday.
