CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Wyoming is now allowing and recognizing same-sex marriages.
Attorneys for the state filed notice Tuesday morning that they would not challenge a federal judge's ruling striking down a Wyoming law defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Not many same-sex couples were expected to be lining up right away to exchange wedding vows simply because Wyoming, the least populated state in the nation, doesn't have a large number of same-sex couples ready to marry.
The Williams Institute, a national think-tank at the UCLA school of law, released a study last month saying there were about 700 same-sex couples in Wyoming and that maybe about 200 would choose to marry within the first year of being able to do so under the changed state status.
Jeran Artery, of Wyoming Equality, said he knew of one same-sex couple making plans to wed Tuesday evening in Cheyenne.
The Laramie County Clerk's Office in Cheyenne, the state's biggest city, had just five same-sex couple applications pending.
Now that the change has become official county clerks around the state are allowed to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the state will recognize the marriages of gay couples done legally elsewhere.
Wyoming is the latest politically conservative state to allow same-sex marriages.
The change is particularly notable in Wyoming, which had been better known as the state where a gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard, was robbed, tied to a fence and beaten in 1998 in a rural area outside Laramie. Shepard died days later on Oct. 12, 1998, and two men were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Shepard's murder galvanized a national push for enhancing penalties for those convicted of targeting victims because of their sexual orientation or race.
The Rev. Dee Lundberg, pastor of the United Church of Christ in Casper, said she has married about 10 couples who have not had their marriages legally recognized by the state.
"For me nothing really changes except when I do a same-sex couple there's the joy of being able to have full legal rights, which I think is a huge issue for emotionally and spiritually just validating families," Lundberg said.
