Video: Marriage Equality Campaign Comes to Oktibbeha County

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Today same-sex couples showed up at Chancery Courts across the state of Mississippi to record their out-of-state marriage licenses. This symbolic gesture is part of a grassroots effort to bring LGBT equality to Mississippi.

“We brought today a copy of our marriage record from the state of Massachusetts to be recorded here in Oktibbeha County where we now live in the state of Mississippi and we’re happy that that was recorded,” says Paris Prince, who legally married Ravi Perry in 2012.

Same-sex couples in nine Mississippi counties, including Desoto, Oktibbeha and Hinds, recorded their out-of-state licenses in Chancery Court on Wednesday. The event was organized by the Campaign for Southern Equality. In Chancery Court, any legal document can be filed for public record.

“When I saw that it had marriage on it, I asked them if they would prefer to take it to Circuit but they said they wanted to handle it as a miscellaneous document. So that’s what I handled it as,” says Oktibbeha County Chancery Clerk, Monica Banks.

Marriage licenses are usually filed with the Circuit Court but Mississippi state law does not allow the Circuit Court to recognize out-of-state licenses or same-sex marriage.

“We say that you have a right to your opinion. However, law is law and in the United States of America we have a concept called Federalism and then we have the Supremacy clause in the United States Constitution that says that this right of marriage that is recognized in one state, no other state is allowed to infringe,” says Perry.

This is not the first public stance for Perry and Prince. They have also appeared on MSNBC and in Jet Magazine for their support of marriage equality. The couple says this action is just the first step in their efforts to have their marriage legally recognized in the state of Mississippi.

Since the Campaign for Southern Equality began its efforts 2 years ago, 21 same-sex couples have been denied a marriage license.