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MI couple who challenged gay marriage ban now married

Posted at 4:19 PM, Aug 23, 2015
and last updated 2015-08-23 16:19:25-04

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. —Two Michigan nurses from the Metro Detroit area who challenged and eventually overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage exchanged their own vows on Saturday.

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse married in Southfield. The couple made history after winning the right to marry in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in June which ruled bans on gay marriage unconstitutional nationwide.

Federal Judge Bernard Friedman, the same judge who struck down the state’s marriage ban in 2014, performed the ceremony.

Roughly 250 people were in attendance.

The couple sued the state in 2012 after they couldn’t jointly adopt each other’s children. That case grew into a challenge to a Michigan constitutional amendment that only marriage between a man and a woman.