After 17 years together, Bill Slimback and Bob Sullivan, together for seventeen years, were married at midnight on September 1, 2009, the first moment that same-sex marriages became legal in Vermont:
Dressed in suits, saying their vows under a large wall-mounted moose head, the two Whitehall, N.Y., men promised their love, exchanged rings and held hands during a modest 17-minute ceremony. Moose Meadow Lodge co-owner Greg Trulson, who’s also a Justice of the Peace, presided.
“It feels wonderful,” said Slimback, 38, an out-of-work Teamster who is taking Sullivan’s last name as his own. “It’s a day I’ve been long waiting for, and a day I truly honestly thought would never come.”
Slimback said he and Sullivan, 41, have long wanted to cement their relationship with a wedding, but since they couldn’t legally marry in New York they chose to wed even before Vermont’s gay marriage era officially dawned.
The ubiquitous Westboro “God Hates Fags” Baptist church plans on picketing six Vermont locations today, including the capitol, Montpelier.
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