US: Nevada Senator proposes on live TV
The Nevada Senator Kelvin Atkinson celebrated the legalisation of same-sex marriage in his state by proposing to his partner immediately after the ban was overturned.
Same-sex marriage was legalised in Idaho and Nevada on Tuesday, when the Court rejected the argument that same-sex marriages devalued the traditional marriage or lead to out of wedlock births.
Las Vegas is known as the ‘wedding capital’, and it was here that Atkinson proposed to his partner of 6 years, Sherwood Howard during a gathering at The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada to celebrate the federal court’s endorsement of equal marriage.
Senator Kelvin Atkinson told CNN how: “I was telling my story and it just came out. I proposed to him on stage in front of everyone.”
“He said yes,” Mr. Atkinson said in the CNN report. “We have been asked to be Nevada’s first same-sex couple to get married … but we haven’t decided yet. I’m going home to talk about it right now actually.”
In April 2013 Senator Kelvin Atkinson impulsively announced that he was gay during the debate around the state’s equal marriage ban. He said: “I have a daughter, ’m black. I’m gay… I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male”.
Watch the full video below:
Since the ruling striking down Nevada and Idaho’s same-sex marriage bands, the Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a temporary stay preventing marriages.
Justice Kennedy has requested a response from plaintiffs in Idaho’s same-sex marriage case by the end of Thursday, possibly signalling that the stay may be short lived.
Alternatively, the stay could be extended, until a decision is made by the Supreme Court on whether it should take up the appeal.
