After searching online for places to marry, they came across Brigitte Van Nice, a county clerk from Iowa, who told them she could perform an online "wedding" for the men. Van Nice sent them application materials, collected a $150 application fee and "married" the two men.
Trouble is, that while gay couples can marry in Iowa, they cannot marry online, and, recently, when Penney and Parker decided to divorce--for reasons they choose not to discuss--they learned that their marriage license was not valid.
Brigitte
Van Nice has been arrested and charged with two counts of forgery and one count
of perjury for telling the two men they could get married in Iowa without even coming to the state.
See, Van Nice filed papers saying she married the two men on Valentine's Day after randomly meeting them at an Iowa truck stop; she also included the phony "signatures" of two witnesses on the license.
Penney's attorney, Beth
Gordon, immediately suspected something was off when Penney brought
her the marriage license after inquiring about how to get a divorce. She then asked the sheriff and the Iowa Division
of Criminal Investigation to investigate, and turned over all documents that Van Nice had given to Penney, such as a hand-written note with the application materials that Van Nice had mailed from
home instead of the courthouse.
Brigitte Van Nice's attorney said she plans to plead not guilty.
It's bad enough that there are but a handful of places in the United States where gay couples can legally wed, but its made all the worse by someone who takes advantage of us for a hundred dollars or so. That says volumes about how much some people value marriage, and the rights of gay men and women to marry.
Well it's not ALL bad news for the guys at least. They don't need to get a divorce. Also, if they HAD been legally married in Iowa, they'd have to live there continuously for a year before they could divorce. At least that's what we were told when WE married in Iowa. It made us think long and hard about it (well, not really).
ReplyDeleteThe worse would have been if they had tried to use it for something official. If it weren't so sad, I would almost want to say it's like that Monty Python Skit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnq96W9jtuw
ReplyDeleteUPDATE: They actually are still legally married and also they cannot get a divorce or have it annulled because of the fact that they cannot live in Iowa for one year which is the requirement. It has been very hard for Mr.Penney and has costed a lot of money.
ReplyDelete