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Dozens of Michigan same-sex couples rushed to get married today, one day after the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was lifted by U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman. State Attorney General Bill Schuette immediately filed an emergency stay, but it has not been ruled on. Until it is, couples are taking advantage of this window, where for now at least, marriage is legal.

Couples were lined up shoulder to shoulder at county clerks offices when they opened this morning.

The marriages were allowed to take place because unlike other recent decisions striking down gay-marriage bans, Judge Friedman did not stay his decision pending an appeal.

First in line in Ann Arbor were Jonnie Terry, 50, and Elizabeth Patten, 52, who have been together for 28 years. They held up their marriage license for cameras with their daughter and son and with Lawrence Kestenbaum, the clerk of Washtenaw County. They then made their way through the crowd to have their wedding officiated by Judge Judith Ellen in the basement of the building.

“It’s not how I envisioned my wedding, but we’re grateful,” Ms. Terry said.

If the Appeals Court for the Sixth Circuit issues a stay, the couples, like those in other states, will be thrust into a state of legal limbo until it decides on the case. In Utah, some 1,300 same-sex couples were married in December during a brief legal window. The state does not recognize those marriages, but the U.S. Department of Justice later declared that the Federal government would view them as valid.

In the opinion, Judge Friedman expressed the hope that the plaintiffs and other families with same-sex parents could enjoy the security and benefits of marriage. “In attempting to define this case as a challenge to ‘the will of the people,’ ” he wrote, “state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people.”

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