One gay marriage in Texas, then a political storm

Sarah Goodfriend, left, and Suzanne Bryant celebrate their wedding with their daughters in Austin, Texas.

Three weeks before her younger daughter’s bat mitzvah last spring, Sarah Goodfriend, 58, got startling news: She had ovarian cancer and needed emergency surgery.

For Goodfriend and her partner of 30 years, Suzanne Bryant, the diagnosis lent urgency to their eight-year battle to marry in their home state, which has a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage that’s being challenged in a federal appeals court.

“Our future is uncertain,” Goodfriend said. “We just felt time was of the essence.”

On Thursday a state district judge agreed, finding Goodfriend’s “health condition strongly militates in favor of issuing immediate relief.” In other words, the women could marry, and they went off to claim this conservative state’s first same-sex marriage license.

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http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-first-same-sex-marriage-20150219-story.html