Like so many other 19-year-old homos--horny, bored, too young to get into R Place--Corrigan Gommenginger and Duncan Clark met on Gay.com. "And, you know, the rest is history," Gommenginger says.

Literally. They were married in Portland last week.

Up and down the West Coast, queers are claiming the right to get married and, along with that, the right to do it even though it's impulsive, dumb, hasty, naive, and absurd to do so at an age when you can't even get into R Place.

Although it's about time, of course. If 19-year-old gay people want to be impulsive, dumb, hasty, naive, and absurd--according to the National Center for Health Statistics, divorce rates in the United States are highest among couples in their early 20s (to say nothing of 19-year-olds)--if they want to throw away all their youth for the sake of monogamy, monotony, and shared kitchen appliances, well, let 'em. Right?

Gommenginger and Clark have been dating since last February. Clark was the one who popped the question, on Gommenginger's 19th birthday, but they planned to do it in a year or so. Then, at 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2, they heard what was going down in Portland, and by midnight they were on the road. (Gommenginger had to call Clark's mother, under Clark's orders, and get permission to take her son's hand in marriage.)

Gommenginger remembers what the Portland official said. "She was just like, 'You guys are ready to be married? It's a lifelong commitment.' And we're like, 'Yeah, we're ready.' And she's like, 'Right on.'"

When I told Gommenginger about the National Center for Health Statistics' numbers, he said, "I'm not a statistic." Gommenginger thinks it will work out because they can talk "for hours and hours and hours and never get bored"--and they're both vegetarian, which Gommenginger says is "pretty nice."

He admits it's rare for young gay guys to commit to one person. "But, you know, it happens! I was talking with some people in Oregon yesterday and, I mean, they've known each other for, like, three months, but they knew they were the right ones. And, it's like, you know when you know. You just can't--you know? I don't know. It's just... I'm sure you know. Kind of. I don't know. I'm sure you have to know."--Christopher Frizzelle

Happily, Happily, Happily Married

You may have heard of Barb and Heather Rhoads-Weaver. In recent months, it's been damn near impossible to avoid them. Since their first wedding in Victoria, BC, last summer (for which the two issued a press release), the Rhoads-Weavers have become a kind of poster couple for gay marriage in Seattle. Local papers have run a half-dozen stories on the pair. The two got hitched again last week in Portland, and have two more weddings planned in San Francisco and Massachusetts. (The Rhoads-Weavers had to make do with a private ceremony in their own hometown; Seattle, unlike its West Coast sister cities, does not recognize same-sex marriages).

Barb, who says she and Heather will keep it up until they have a license that's "recognized here and elsewhere," insists there's a method to the matrimonial madness. If something should happen to either her or Heather, Barb says, a license "could be used as evidence of the nature of our relationship." And the more marriage licenses the couple collects, the better the odds that at least one will be recognized. "Until we have a license that's going to be recognized by all jurisdictions, we're going to continue to go to as many jurisdictions as possible."

The legal chaos (and hassle) this creates--multiple marriage licenses, issued under multiple jurisdictions, with multiple laws--is obvious. Divorce, likewise, will be tricky, because they'll have to find a jurisdiction willing to recognize (and dissolve) the union. Our message to marriage-license-issuing jurisdictions everywhere: Legalize gay marriage, and stop this couple (and all the other gay couples who simply want their relationships recognized) before they marry again. --Erica C. Barnett

Belated Honeymoon

I was a bit skeptical about some of the folks lining up to get married in Portland last week--what with those two young lesbians who looked as if they were there just for an excuse to skip school and all--but actually, most pairs looked as if they had dragged themselves that morning out of a warm bed they had been sharing for decades--and planned to go right back home and do something domestic, like make lunch.

Take Sean Brown. If there was ever a gay couple that should be married, it's Brown, 41, and his partner, John Doyle, 39. They met in New York more than a decade ago. Doyle was a lecturer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's medieval collection. Brown was an aspiring playwright and, as he says, "not being particularly successful at it, so I was in the food industry."

Brown was a waiter, in other words, at a Mexican restaurant that specialized in margaritas. In walked Doyle, a bit younger than he is now, a bit more conservatively dressed. Doyle was on a date with another guy, which in no way stopped Brown, who was not their waiter, from maneuvering into Doyle's line of sight. Glances were exchanged, "a mutual agreement" was silently reached.

Later Doyle came back into the restaurant looking for Brown. They went out, and, well... they now run a popular restaurant in Portland with a repertoire of 87 different soups (Tuscan Bean, Cream of Celery, Jennifer's Mushroom Stroganoff...).

They've been wearing wedding rings for five years, but now they're scheduling a honeymoon--in Mexico.

"Last year we got to go to Spain," Brown says, "and visit every single cathedral. That was for John. So this one is the beach and that's for me."--Eli Sanders

Still Courting

Janet Helson and Betty Lundquist like to joke that their first date--an organized hiking trek through the mountains of Nepal--lasted five weeks. Twelve years, two children, and countless plot twists later, the couple is still waiting to make the ultimate leap into mainstream domesticity. On Monday, March 8, the two made history, becoming one of six Seattle couples to challenge King County's same-sex marriage ban.

Helson and Lundquist, who've stayed together through 12 years of not-quite-married bliss, aren't inclined to romantic flourishes. Ten years ago, the couple says, they considered a commitment ceremony; but by the time it made sense, they say, they had more important things--among them two teenage foster children--to contend with. "We're not huge ritual people, and we aren't really religious," says Helson, a blunt, plainspoken attorney with Columbia Legal Services. But when Helson heard that the Northwest Women's Law Center (which brought the suit, along with Lambda Legal, against King County) was looking for plaintiffs, she called Lundquist to propose. Lundquist wasn't there, so Helson left a voice mail. "How romantic!" Lundquist laughs now. "I responded by e-mail." On Monday morning, the two lined up, along with five other couples, to challenge the county's refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Lundquist, a blonde with trim wire-frame glasses who came to Seattle from "awful" Salt Lake City, says that more than anything, she wants to be treated like every other couple. "There's something satisfying about fitting in," she says. Every time they go to a wedding, Helson adds, "one of our kids says, 'When are you getting married?'... It's so ironic to me that we can become licensed foster parents, we can adopt children, but we can't get married."

Helson and Lundquist, who works as a bookkeeper for the Fremont Public Association, are fortunate in one respect: They don't have to worry about domestic-partner benefits, which both of their employers provide. But other legal benefits straight couples take for granted--the right to visit each other in the hospital, the right to set up joint utility accounts--elude them. "There have been times when one of us needs to transact business or fill out forms where it would have been no problem" for a married couple, Lundquist says. "Those legal rights are important."

"What's exciting to me," Helson says, "is that it's building up all over the country. That's one of the things that convinced us to get married--it's part of a larger movement.... We've been waiting 12 years to have a place to get married--if we have to wait another year or two," while the case winds its way toward the Washington Supreme Court, "it won't be the end of the world."--Erica C. Barnett