Mitchell and Welton, a public defender, were married last week in a Hindu temple south of Katmandu. "I really feel like a married woman now," Welton said. "It would be really nice to have the state of Colorado sanction that. I'm really heartened that New York came to their senses while we were gone." The women, whose new last name is Welton-Mitchell, arrived home in Denver on Monday with a marriage certificate issued by the Blue Diamond Society and signed by the Hindu priest. "We aspired to one day have a (Nepalese) government stamp on the marriage certificate," said Courtney Welton-Mitchell, "and to have the U.S. recognize it."
Nepal RPCV Courtney Mitchell marries Sarah Welton in a Hindu Nepalese tradition in the first public lesbian wedding in the Himalayan nation that recently began recognizing gay rights and working to draft laws to end sexual discrimination
Denver lesbians who recently wed in Nepal hope Colorado legalizes gay marriage
By Colleen O'Connor
The Denver Post
Posted: 06/29/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 06/29/2011 08:00:18 AM MDT
Caption: Courtney Mitchell, a college professor, right, offers a wedding ring to Sarah Welton, a lawyer, during their wedding ceremony at a Hindu temple in Katmandu, Nepal, Monday, June 20, 2011. The couple from Denver, Colorado, married in a Hindu Nepalese tradition in the first public lesbian wedding in the Himalayan nation that recently began recognizing gay rights and working to draft laws to end sexual discrimination. (AP | Binod Joshi)
Eleven days before a Denver couple made history in Nepal by being married in the country's first public lesbian wedding, they heard bad news.
On June 9, a transgender member of Nepal's first gay-rights organization told the United Nations Human Rights Council that proposed laws would define marriage as only between a man and a woman, and re-criminalize gays in defiance of the Supreme Court decision.
"I was very concerned," said Courtney Mitchell, a graduate student at the University of Denver.
Mitchell and Sarah Welton wanted to marry in Nepal to help promote the country's stance on gay rights.
In 2007, Nepal's Supreme Court gave equal status to sexual minorities. Now in the process of drafting a new
Extras
Slide show: More images from the ceremony in Nepal.
constitution, the country was expected to include those equal rights - including the right to same-sex marriage - in the national document.
Alarmed, Mitchell immediately contacted her friend Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal's only openly gay lawmaker and founder of the country's gay- rights movement, whom Mitchell had met when she was a Peace Corps volunteer.
"I was prepared to make that an issue when talking to the press," she said. "But he wasn't concerned at all. He said it was just a small group of individuals with no political clout."
So she and Welton, a public defender, were married last week in a Hindu temple south of Katmandu.
"I really feel like a married woman now," Welton said. "It would be really nice to have the state of Colorado sanction that. I'm really heartened that New York came to their senses while we were gone."
Mitchell, who speaks Nepalese, has conducted trainings in Nepal's LGBT community at Pant's request.
"He was interested in (education) on the history of gay rights and history in the United States, particularly Stonewall," she said, referring to the June 27, 1969, clash between New York City police and gay patrons of the Stonewall Inn that is widely regarded as the beginning of the gay-rights movement in the U.S.
"He wanted people in Nepal to have the sense of being connected to a larger movement."
In May, the deadline for a new constitution was pushed back three months, so there has been no decision on wording of same-sex marriage or equal status for sexual minorities.
The women, whose new last name is Welton-Mitchell, arrived home in Denver on Monday with a marriage certificate issued by the Blue Diamond Society and signed by the Hindu priest.
"We aspired to one day have a (Nepalese) government stamp on the marriage certificate," said Courtney Welton-Mitchell, "and to have the U.S. recognize it."
Colleen O'Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
