Grant County (pop. 29,514, principal town: Silver City), in deep red southern New Mexico, will be the 7th of 33 counties in the state to issue same-sex marriage licenses. This follows District Judge J.C. Robinson's order to do so earlier today. Grant County Clerk Robert Zamarripa opted not to contest the ruling. Licenses will be issued beginning next week.
The issue is percolating through other counties in the state, as well.
County-by-county status of marriage equality in New Mexico as of Sept. 3, 2013.
Blue counties have committed to same-sex marriage licenses, purple ones have active cases pending.
In Los Alamos County (pop. 17,950, principal city: Los Alamos) - home of the Manhattan Project which created the first atom bomb - County Clerk Sharon Stover is contesting a similar order from a District Judge.
State statutes contain references to "husband" and "wife," and include a marriage license application that has sections for male and female applicants. County clerks historically have relied on those provisions in denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, state law doesn't explicitly authorize or prohibit same-sex couples to be married.
"I respect and value the rights of each person to be treated as equally and fairly as our Constitution states," Stover said. "Clearly, the marriage license in state statute has not been updated since 1961. It does not work for same-sex couples, and that is a matter for the Legislature to fix, not a clerk and not a district judge."
She's holding out for a ruling from a case that's sure to come before the state's Supreme Court in the near future. A group of Republican lawmakers have joined a case to stop Dona Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins, who began movement on marriage equality in NM (without a court order) last month.
Sandoval County (pop. 131,561, principal city: Rio Rancho), the state's fastest growing county and one of its more populous, also has a case pending. No hearing date has been scheduled yet.
A lesbian couple from Placitas last week asked a district court to force Sandoval County Clerk Eileen Garbagni to issue them a marriage license. There's been no ruling by a judge or hearing scheduled in the case as of Tuesday.
Garbagni says she will act in compliance of the District Court order, once issued. In this flurry of activity over the last several weeks, there has yet to be a court order against marriage equality. The six counties where marriage equality is already underway represent more than half the state's population:
- Santa Fe (Santa Fe) pop. 146,375
- Dona Ana (Las Cruces) pop. 214,445
- Bernalillo (Albuquerque) pop. 662,564
- San Miguel (Las Vegas) pop. 28,891
- Valencia (Belen, Los Lunas), pop. 76,571
- Taos (Taos) pop. 32,779