In what's being called the largest wedding New Mexico has ever seen, same-sex couples gathered in Albuquerque's Civic Plaza on Tuesday after the Bernalillo County Clerk received a court order stating that it was unconstitutional to deny marriage licenses based on gender discrimination.
By high noon, more than 80 marriage licenses had been issued to same-sex couples and many of them made their way out onto the Civic Plaza to wed. Officiates from a slew of faiths joined a metropolitan judge to do the honors.
In the last week, a total of five New Mexico county clerks have begun issuing same-sex marriage licenses. So far 462 licenses have been given out.
However Amber Royster with Equality New Mexico says there is still a lot of work to be done.
"We are still really looking for the New Mexico Supreme Court to issue the ruling that will make it the law of the land," Royster said.
Some Republican lawmakers are calling the county clerks' actions “lawless.”
