After decades-long legal battle, gay couple's 1971 marriage officially recognized
In 1971, gay couple Michael McConnell and Jack Baker applied for a marriage license from Blue Earth County, Minnesota. The clerk, not realizing one of the individuals listed on the application was male, issued the license — though stopped short of officially recording it.
Nearly five decades later — after a prolonged legal battle to get their union legally recognized — their wish was granted. The couple received a letter from the Social Security Administration on Feb. 16 officially validating their '71 marriage. The McConnells (Jack took Michael's last name) are now thought to be the longest-married, same-sex couple in the U.S. — and perhaps world.
“We knew from day one when we were legally married in 1971 that we were right — that we had followed the law to the letter,” Michael McConnell told NBC News.
After first being denied a marriage license in Hennepin County, Minnesota, in May 1970, the couple figured out a loophole. Jack McConnell changed his first name to the gender-neutral name “Pat Lyn,” and Michael McConnell went to Blue Earth County to apply for a license alone.
Read the rest at: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/after-decades-long-legal-battle-gay-couple-s-1971-marriage-n980471
