SILVERTON – When Gretchen Gunter and her wife, Elizabeth Gunter, decided to get married, the Oklahoma couple thought they might elope to Elizabeth’s favorite place in the world – the mountains.
On Sept. 23, 2022, the two women stopped by the office of San Juan County Clerk and Recorder Ladonna Jaramillo in Silverton. Jaramillo, in accordance with her duty as the clerk, issued the couple some paperwork.
Atop a mountain near Ouray two days later, Gretchen and Elizabeth were married – or so they thought.
It was not until Gretchen was contacted by The Durango Herald nearly two years later that she learned that the couple were not married. Although they had asked for a marriage certificate, Jaramillo had issued a certificate for a civil union because they were a same-sex couple.
“We kind of feel like this ruined our whole wonderful experience that we had,” Gretchen said.
When asked what happened, Jaramillo told Gretchen and the Herald that she was unaware same-sex couples could receive a marriage license and assumed she was supposed to issue a civil union license, although the state had legalized same-sex marriage eight years before.
“I probably just never got the message,” she said.
Civil unions were created in Colorado in 2013 by the state Legislature as a way to circumvent a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Like marriages, they must also be unwound in dense legal proceedings.
“The civil union gives everybody the same rights and recognition and all of that for tax purposes on a state level,” said Kathy Hogan, a founding partner of the Denver-based law firm Hogan Omidi, which specializes in family law. “But the Colorado Legislature has no power to define how the IRS treats people and whether you qualify to be married or not married for purposes of federal income tax filing.”
In addition to federal taxes, other federally dictated rights enjoyed by married couples, such as Social Security survivor benefits, are not necessarily conferred upon partners in a civil union. And unlike a marriage, other states do not have to recognize a civil union as it applies to circumstances such as spousal privilege or visitation in hospitals.
While civil unions might provide the same rights as a marriage to a couple within Colorado, they are a lesser legal status when considered in a national context.
The civil union statute was rendered moot just a year after it passed, when a federal appeals court struck down a ban on same-sex marriage. Clerks in Colorado started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples hours later.
The issue was doubly put to rest on June 26, 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. By 2022, civil unions had largely become a ghostly artifact leftover from an old legal battle.
“I can’t imagine why somebody would want to do a civil union instead of a marriage,” Hogan said.
Jaramillo, who was first elected in November 2010, served in her role through all of this.
But she chalks up the error, which occurred seven years after same-sex marriage became legal nationwide, to a false assumption that the couple wanted a civil union license.
“I just figured I hadn’t been doing them that long, and that (when) somebody comes in for a marriage license and they’re a same-sex couple … we did civil unions,” she said. “I was never told that they should get a marriage license.”
By 2022, on the day the Gunters stopped by Jaramillo’s office, same-sex marriage had been legal in Colorado for eight years. Of the 11 years Jaramillo had been in office by that point, civil unions had a momentary period of popularity among same-sex couples that lasted just 17 months, from May 2013 through October 2014.
Gretchen doesn’t buy it.
“Same sex marriage has been legal in Colorado since 2014, so the county clerk’s excuse of ‘it being so new’ is irrelevant, I simply don’t believe it,” she wrote in a follow-up email to the Herald after speaking with Jaramillo.
Jaramillo said she had been trained and told to provide civil union licenses to same-sex couples – and no one had ever told her otherwise. In a county of fewer than 1,000 residents, Jaramillo has just one deputy and implied that the workload can be burdensome, which may have led to the mistake.
“I make assumptions,” she said. “I just figured that we’ve been doing it that way, and it probably didn’t even dawn on me one way or the other.”
According to records made available through a Colorado Open Records Act request, the San Juan County Clerk and Recorder’s office has issued 360 licenses since May 2013. Only two, including the Gunters, were civil union licenses. The other was issued to two men from Texas in February 2015. One of those men has since died, and efforts to reach the surviving spouse were unsuccessful.
Jaramillo said she does not hold any prejudices against same-sex couples, but was acting on a false assumption.
“Whatever people want to do is fine,” she said. “I’m not against it.”
Jaramillo offered to fix the error if the Gunters came into her office. When Gretchen explained that they live in Oklahoma, Jaramillo said she “assumed” she could fix it if they mailed in their civil union certificate.
Gretchen said she and her wife have not yet run into any administrative issues as a result of the error. The couple have jointly filed taxes without a hiccup and has yet to run into other situations where the technicality could prove challenging.
Nonetheless, it is disheartening, she said.
“We are in love, we want to share that love with the world,” Gretchen wrote. “We are going to spend the rest of our lives together, so of course we want all of the legal benefits that come with being married. I can’t even fathom why anyone, especially someone in the county clerk’s office, who is filing legal paperwork with serious ramifications, would assume that we want a civil union instead of a legal marriage.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
