UUA News & Events:Legal at Last: Julie and Hillary Goodridge Married at UUA Headquarters

Legal at Last: Julie and Hillary Goodridge Married at UUA Headquarters

Julie placing a head wreath on daughter Annie.

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Press release

(Boston, May 17, 2004) In Eliot Hall on the second floor of the UUA's Headquarters building, a room in which civil rights leaders are memorialized and which overlooks the Massachusetts State House grounds, Julie and Hillary Goodridge were legally married in a 2 PM ceremony attended by friends, family, and dozens of media representatives from around the world.

The Goodridges, lead plaintiffs in the landmark case Goodridge v. the Massachusetts Dept. of Health which gained same sex couples the freedom to legally marry in Massachusetts, were united in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and Deborah Kay, an attorney and close friend of the Goodridges. Annie Goodridge, Julie and Hillary's eight-year-old daughter whose questions about why her mothers couldn't be married sparked a three-year legal battle, acted as jubilant ring bearer and flower girl, and beamed during the entire ceremony from the front row.

Also participating in the ceremony as speakers were the couple's friends Amy Domini, David Ruben, Lois Levin and Helen Rittenberg, UUA Executive Vice President Kay Montgomery, and State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, in whose district the Goodridges reside. Among those attending the service were Mary Bonauto, the attorney who represented GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) and the plaintiffs in the freedom to marry case, State Rep. Byron Rushing, David Wilson and Robert Compton, who had been married earlier in the day at Arlington Street Church by the Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie, and Ed Balmelli and Michael Horgan, who were married Monday evening.

In celebrating the marriage of Julie and Hillary Goodridge, the Rev. Sinkford also performed his first legal wedding since making the decision to not sign marriage licenses as long as legal marriage was denied to same-sex couples. Sinkford said, "It was great privilege to participate in the marriage of this loving and committed couple. It is a great and happy day for Unitarian Universalism and for all of the citizens of the Commonwealth."

On May 20, the three-day waiting period after taking out marriage licenses on May 17 will have elapsed, meaning that same-sex couples who did not seek waivers of the waiting period will be permitted to marry. At that time, hundreds more couples will be united in legal marriage in this, the first state in the nation to permit legal same-sex marriage.