ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702170045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: The (Newport News) Daily Press
The Chevy van was festooned with ribbons and a ``just married'' sign, its driver tooting the horn merrily as she piloted the wedding-party vehicle up the road to an early afternoon reception.
Fellow motorists honked and waved in a show of unity for romance that leads to marriage - it was, after all, Valentine's Day - oblivious to the fact that they were giving the thumbs up to a pair of lesbians who had just got hitched.
The law is not on their side, and public opinion may be against them, too. But Rip Sharp and Margaret White decided to get married anyway on a day revered for its time-honored traditions of love and romance. Traditions, they said, that apply even to gay couples.
Before a clutch of friends from their church and the Tidewater chapter of the National Organization for Women, Sharp, 39, and White, 45, were joined at noon Friday in what they called a holy union. Self-declared apolitical women, Sharp and White nevertheless decided to hold their ceremony in the courtyard of Norfolk City Hall as part of NOW's national day of action to support gay and lesbian marriages.
Virginia is on the verge of becoming the latest in an avalanche of states that have passed laws refusing to recognize same-sex marriages and the contractual rights that go with them. The bill passed the House with just nine delegates voting against it and was unopposed in the Senate. If Gov. George Allen signs the bill, Virginia will be the 16th state with such a law.
In Norfolk on Friday, Sharp and White held hands throughout their 10-minute ceremony, Sharp wearing beige slacks and shirt and brightly colored matching cummerbund and bow tie, White in a blue crepe dress with a lace collar. Glancing at each other nervously, they hardly looked like political renegades.
``It's only through grace that you have come this far,'' said their minister, the Rev. Carol Wier of New Life Metropolitan Community Church, just before the couple exchanged simple silver bands.
After the ceremony, White said that it would take more than grace to make the union a legal marriage, complete with all the spousal benefits heterosexual married couples receive.
Same-sex marriage already is illegal in Virginia and throughout the nation, but laws preventing it have been challenged in Hawaii. There, the state Supreme Court has upheld the right of same-sex couples to marry under the Hawaii constitution. The court is expected to hear a second challenge soon.
``I think when it comes to love, it doesn't matter so much whom you love as how you love,'' Sharp said . ``You find love and happiness where you can. I don't think that the fact that we are both women has anything to do with love.
``This is as committed and as real as anybody else's marriage.''
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB