PA Same-Sex Marriage Pioneer Tells Why He Defied Law
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PHILADELPHIA — The Freethought Society (FS) is very pleased to host Bruce Hanes, Esquire, the Montgomery County twice-elected official who defied Pennsylvania state law in 2013 and began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Hanes will speak on Monday, March 16, 7:00 PM at the Ludington Library (5 South Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr). The event is free and open to the public.
Hanes’ presentation “Marriage Equality — What’s The Problem?” will highlight how it came about that on July 24, 2013 the Montgomery County Register of Wills and Clerk of Orphans’ Court issued the first same-gender marriage license in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The presentation will be about the reasons why Hanes decided to do this and the consequences following that simple act, including the state Department of Health filing a lawsuit to force him to stop. The move defied a state law that had been in existence since 1996.
In what amounted to a nearly year-long back-and-forth legal battle on the state’s same-sex marriage ban, the issue was settled on May 20, 2014 when Judge John E. Jones III ruled the ban unconstitutional. A week later, the state dropped its case against Hanes, who became known as the “rebel Montgomery County Register of Wills.” (Jones was appointed by President (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States) George W. Bush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush) as federal judge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge) on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; he was previously best known for his presiding role in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District) case, in which the teaching of intelligent design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design), also known as creationism, in public school science classes was ruled to be unconstitutional.)
Hanes was elected as Montgomery County’s first Democratic Register of Wills and Clerk of Orphans’ Court in 2007 and was re-elected for the same office in 2011. Before becoming Register of Wills, the Temple University School of Law graduate briefly served as a real estate law teacher at its Real Estate Institute. He also served as an Assistant Attorney General for the Pennsylvania Department of Justice — which, ironically, declined to pursue Hanes for issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples — before starting his own private practice, D. Bruce Hanes and Associates, where he spent nearly 40 years practicing civil litigation, wills, estates, and real estate law. He is also currently an adjunct professor at Philadelphia University, where he teaches electoral law and politics.
Bruce Hanes will be speaking on Monday, March 16, 7:00 PM at the Ludington Library (5 South Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr). For more information, contact:
Glen Loev, Freethought Society Vice-President
Phone: 610-420-2808
Email:
Tom Melchiorre, Freethought Society Board Member
Phone: 610-960-2558
Email:
PA Same-Sex Marriage Pioneer Tells Why He Defied Law