In two recent posts, Bluestem has noted that some counties in Southern Minnesota have started issuing marriage licenses in anticipation of the advent of marriage equality on August.
Under Minnesota law, couples must wait five days after receiving the license to be married; to accommodate the August 1 milestone, when love is the law, some counties across the state are issuing licenses now.
Pipestone County, over in the extreme southwestern corner of the state, started accepting applications for same-sex marriage licenses on Monday. One couple applied, according to KARE-11.
That's three days before Hennepin and Ramsey Counties issued licenses. In Southern Minnesota, Blue Earth, Brown, Nicollet, Renville and Sibley Counties were also prepared to accept applications on Thursday as well.
But same-sex couples wanting to have a marriage license from Martin County will just have to wait until August 1 for that document. The Fairmont Sentinel reports in Local recorders to use Aug. 1 date:
While some bigger counties in Minnesota have begun accepting same-sex marriage license applications, gay couples planning to get married in Martin or Faribault counties must wait until Aug. 1 to apply.According to Martin County Recorder Kay Wrucke and Faribault County Recorder Sherry Asmus, a conference for recorders' offices throughout the state will be held next week to address the specifics.
"We need uniformity throughout the state," Wrucke said. "The law goes into effect Aug. 1, and we will begin accepting applications at that time. Some of the bigger cities, they have a bigger volume of applicants. Here, we don't have that. There is a five-day waiting period, and I think it's being done there just to handle the volume."
"I know in the metro counties they've started, but the smaller counties won't put anything into effect until Aug. 1," Asmus said.
That's sounding remarkably like the Minnesota for Marriage/NOM talking point about an urban/rural divide.
Martin County is number one in pork production in Minnesota, but we didn't expect this hogwash from local government. (Not slamming pigs or hog farmers here, as Blue Earth, Brown, Nicollet, Pipestone, Renville and Sibley Counties raise their fair share of the porcine mortgage lifters as well).
But the United States Census Bureau estimates that Martin County was home to 20,475 people in 2012, while only 9,345 people were thought to call Pipestone County home. Renville County? 15,369 people.
Blue Earth County, which shares a border with Martin County, is a relative teeming metropolis with an estimated 2012 population of 65,091, while to the immediate north, Nicollet County claims a mere 32,929 people.
On that county's northern border, Sibley County is estimated to be peopled by a mere 15,123 souls, including Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe). However, perhaps it doesn't count as rural, as Bluestem notes in Federal OMB launches sneak attack to redefine Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen's sacred rural values.
We're just surprised that Martin County can't get on the phone and ask their neighboring counties how they did it, rather than pretending there aren't loving same sex couples in rural Minnesota. It's all one state, after all.
Photo: If gay summer weddings make people in Martin County government anxious, Bluestem highly recommends Xanax for Gay Summer Weddings. We've ordered a tractor-trailer load to quell our social awkwardness, fretting over our crabby old hag rags and the adequacy of our gifts.
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