Clela Rorex, First to Issue Marriage License to Gay Couple, Dies at 78
Above: Rorex addressing a rally celebrating the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision in 2015.Clela Rorex, who was a former clerk in Boulder County, Colo., died at age 78.Rorex died Sunday at a hospice in Longmont, Colo., Boulder’s Daily Camera reports.
She had suffered complications from a recent surgery.In 1975, when she was Boulder County clerk, Rorex received a marriage license application from two men from Colorado Springs who had been denied a license in their home county, El Paso County.
Rorex consulted Bill Wise, an assistant district attorney in her county, and he said there was no law against issuing the license, “probably because the situation was simply not contemplated in the past by our legislature,” notes a news release from Out Boulder County.
So she granted the men the license the next day.Word of Rorex’s action spread. Los Angeles residents Anthony Sullivan and Richard Adams heard about her and flew to Boulder so they could get married.
