10th anniversary of same-sex marriages marked in New Paltz [View all]

[hrmjustin]

NEW PALTZ – More than 70 people turned out to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the historic New Paltz same-sex weddings Thursday night at New Paltz Town Hall. Many of the attendees were couples who were married by Mayor Jason West in 2004.

On February 27th a decade ago West solemnized vows for more than two dozen couples in Peace Park before same-sex marriage was legalized in New York State in July of 2011.

West recalled thinking he would just perform a few ‘marriages’ but people kept coming for an hour-and-a-half to two hours. By the end, there were 1,500-2,000 spectators gathered as well as news crews. But it was the first legal marriage he performed that showed him the point.

“It was a five minute ceremony, they kept it simple,” West said. “They’d already been together for 20, 30 years. But the normalcy of it struck me as the whole point of having to go through the hundreds of cameras for a few months 10 years ago.”

http://www.empirestatenews.net/News2014/20140228-2.htm