First to Issue Same-Gender Marriage License, Former Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex Dies
Clela Rorex was a groundbreaker for the queer community. Most known for advocating for LGBTQ rights and being the first in the nation to issue a same-gender marriage license, Rorex passed away June 19 in a hospice center in Longmont, after developing an infection following surgery.
“She meant many things to my brother and I,” her children Poston and Aron Rorex and Linda Vap write on Facebook. “We are proud of her political activism and the work she did for women’s rights, gay marriage and equality issues at large.”
Born July 23, 1943 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Rorex attended Steamboat Springs High School before going on to study at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Clela Rorex acted as both Boulder County’s clerk and recorder, making headlines and issuing a total of five marriage licenses to same-gender couples before the former state attorney general J.D. MacFarlane stopped her.
Rorex was elected when she was 31 years old. She was only working for a few months when same-gender couple David McCord and David Zamora came to her for help in March of 1975. Having been turned away from El Paso County when requesting a marriage license, the couple went to Boulder where they found Rorex, a pioneering ally and advocate for the LGBTQ community who was glad to help in whatever way she could.
“I don’t think she thought of it as the game changer it became. I think she just thought of it as trying to personally reconcile an ideological situation where she didn’t believe in discrimination and she believed in equality,” Poston says in a Denver Post interview. “So when two men walked into the office and wanted to marry, she was at an ideological impasse where you either walk the walk or you don’t.”
Rorex resigned from politics in 1977 due to receiving a large amount of hate mail and threats; however, this wasn’t the end of her LGBTQ activism. “I honestly did not anticipate the degree of hate. It was threats—People needed to kill me for doing this, and that kind of stuff,” Rorex said in an interview with Colorado Public Radio. “I had entire church congregations writing me that it would be Sodom and Gomorrah in the area.”
Even with the prejudice she endured, Rorex made an effort to show up to every Pride parade in Boulder, and she signed up to be a courthouse witness for as many same-gender marriages as possible.
In the face of adversity and discrimination, Rorex fought for acceptance. Without her crucial support and work, same-gender marriage equality would not have been possible or exist in the same capacity we know today.
Clela Rorex is remembered for her dedication and persistent activism in the LGBTQ community. She was and will remain a role model and hero to so many, for her inclusivity, acceptance, and desire for equality.
Photo courtesy of Clela Rorex on Facebook
