Tenn. plaintiffs overjoyed to be part of marriage ruling

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Valeria Tanco woke up Friday morning with a feeling of certainty: This was going to be the day

On Friday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled same-sex marriage was constitutional and Tennessee’s refusal to recognize such unions was unconstitutional.

“There’s no way to explain how happy and how powerful today has been,” Tanco told reporters Friday at the University of Tennessee College of Law. “There are no words for how important it is for me to know that my family is protected.”

Tanco and spouse Sophy Jesty, both both professors at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine here, were the lead plaintiffs among several from Tennessee who challenged the state’s stance in the courts.

“I feel and I think Val feels very honored to have been a part of this,” Jesty said. “It’s be been incredibly meaningful for our family.”

Married in 2011 in New York, the couple has a 15-month-old daughter, Emilia Maria Jesty, who played with a purple crepe myrtle flower unaware of the history taking place around her.

Lead plaintiffs

• Kentucky Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon, together more than 30 years with two adopted children.

• Michigan April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, who each adopted two special-needs children but couldn’t adopt them together.

• Ohio James Obergefell, whose partner died before they could legally marry in Ohio; they traveled on a medical jet to Maryland to marry after more than 20 years together.

• Tennessee Valeria Tanco and Sophy Jesty, legally married in New York but not in Tennessee after they moved.

Source: USA TODAY research

Last fall a divided panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Tennessee’s ban against recognizing same-sex marriages from outside the state. In April, the nine justices of the Supreme Court heard arguments from lawyers representing plaintiffs in Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio as well as attorneys general representing the defendant states.

“I am so profoundly grateful to the Supreme Court for doing the right thing today,” Tanco said.

The ruling was swiftly put into place in the Volunteer State. Gov. Bill Haslam and Attorney General Herbert Slatery quickly said the state would not try to block the marriages, giving clerks the green light to issue licenses to same-sex couples. Supporters praised them for their quick action.

“I’m so proud to be a Tennessean,” said Regina Lambert, a Knoxville lawyer who has worked with Jesty and Tanco since the case began in 2013. “I’m just so proud that Tennessee is going to handle this in a way that expedites the rights of their citizens.”

• In Louisiana,

• In Mississippi,

• In Alabama,

Even though Slatery said he was personally disappointed with the high-court ruling, within 90 minutes Tennessee county clerks were issuing new marriage licenses, ones that no longer said bride and groom but Applicant 1 and Applicant 2. More than half of the state’s 95 counties issued licenses the day of the ruling, according to Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project.

Both Tanco and Jesty were at work when the ruling was announced. They watched the drama unfold in a live blog on Lambert’s iPad.

In 2006, Tennessee voters supported the state’s definition of marriage as one man and one woman. That law is now void.

“I feel free today the most free I’ve ever felt,” Jesty said. “Just this boundless, pure joy, it was just overflowing, overfilling us. It was incredible, it still feels incredible.”

Lambert said their original legal strategy did not envision being part of a landmark case.

“We just wanted to represent the state,” Lambert said. “So we’re really proud that as this advanced, Tennessee got to be in this incredible position.”

Lambert said she imagined many same-sex couples across the USA who had been patiently waiting for the chance to get married.

Now they can, she said.

Tanco and Jesty both said they had received wide support from colleagues at the University of Tennessee and Knoxville residents.

“The response of people in Knoxville has always been supportive,” Jesty said. “That’s not to say that I’m not aware that there are people in this city and elsewhere in the country that are not behind us and not in support of this decision today, but always to our faces, we have had nothing but support, really, from the people of Knoxville.”

When the couple’s daughter was born in March 2014, she made her own history, the first child in Tennessee to have a woman listed as her father. At the time, state forms listed only “mother” and “father.” Tanco was in the mom spot, and Jesty was listed as Emilia’s father.

Now “she will be growing up in a nation where she doesn’t know any different” about the law on Americans being able to marry the person of their choice, said Tanco, who looks forward to explaining to Emilia why “her name keeps popping up on Google.”

“I’m proud of how far our country has come in the last two years,” she said.

Contributing: Stacey Barchenger, Dave Boucher and Jordan Buie, The Tennessean

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