On Monday, the first day of marriage equality in Orange County following last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Prop 8, the Clerk-Recorder's office logged about double the number of marriages done on an average Monday, with most licenses issued to same-sex couples. The county's clerk offices in Fullerton, Laguna Hills and Santa Ana average about 30 marriages on Mondays, but about 70 civil ceremonies were performed yesterday, according to Christina Aguilar of the marriage license department.
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Though by Aguilar's reckoning more marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples Monday, she noted her staff is not allowed to track exactly how many licenses were for those couples versus their heterosexual counterparts.
“We got maybe one extra staff member to help out in the morning,” Aguilar told City News Service, adding that demand was steady but not unexpectedly high.
“The mood's been great, and there's been a steady flow all day,” she said, characterizing most couples as “very happy
… very gracious, appreciative.”
Compared to Monday, Aguilar said, the pace of same-sex marriages seemed higher immediately before passage of Prop 8, which banned gay marriage in California. She was quick to note Orange County was also operating with one fewer clerk's office as the Fullerton facility was not open then.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.