Before gay couples could get married in California, Antonio Blount, 31, and Justin McCain, 18, got married last March in Norfolk, Virginia. As all couples have to do, they applied and received their marriage license without a problem. The clerk did not notice that Justin's driving license had an M under sex. Also, the name Justine was used on the application, and Justine was wearing women's clothes. (At Right: The River Front area of Norfolk near the location of the first gay marriage in the Virginia.)

The happy couple was then married in a civil marriage at the court house, and the honeymoon began after the first gay marriage in the very conservative Commonwealth of Virginia.

All would have continued well except Justine pushed her luck and applied for a change of name. When the records arrived from her birth state, the truth was out, and the Commonwealth Attorney initiated charges of a misdemeanor for false information, which carries a fine of $250.

Of course, the marriage was legally nullified, and in time the charges were dropped with some legalese chatter from the Commonwealth Attorney who did not want the embarrassment of being heckled and laughed at by a million intelligent Virginians while being supported by two million rednecks.

The sad news is that the no-longer-married gay couple went into hiding and accepted their state ordered divorce. Had their original bravado continued, they might have made a court case to challenge Virginia laws against only marriage between a man and a woman.

No one knows how it would have played out in the courts, but it would have been fun watching anal retentive lawyers from Virginia defending an arcane law.