real life

A father and son are about to get married.

 

A father and son are getting married.

Well, technically, but it’s not quite what it sounds like. It’s actually pretty wonderful.

Daily Star reports, after more than 50 years together, Bill Novak and Norman McArthur are set to be married in Pennsylvania, USA. Novak is McArthur’s adopted “father”. The adoption was the only way the couple could have their relationship recognised in some legal capacity.

Novak and McArthur became registered as domestic partners in New York City in 1994, but upon moving to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, they discovered that due to the state’s same-sex partnership laws, their relationship would no longer be legally viable.

Adoption was the only way the couple’s relationship could be legally recognised.

Patch reports that when the couple tried to get their estates in order they were told, “hell would freeze over” before Pennsylvania granted same-sex marriage, and were advised by a lawyer that adoption was the only way to give legal “underpinning” to their relationship.

So in 2000, Novak adopted McArthur.

Now 15 years later, their marriage aspirations could soon become reality. In 2014, The United States District Court declared Pennsylvania’s Marriage Laws prohibiting same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

Before they wed, they had to dissolve the adopted father/son relationship.

Patch reports Terry Clemons, a founding partner of law firm Clemons, Richter & Reiss, P.C., successfully petitioned the Orphans Court of Bucks County to vacate the adoption and allow them to marry.

On the 14th of May the vacation was granted, and Novak and McArthur immediately applied for a marriage licence.

“We are ecstatic beyond belief.”

“We are ecstatic beyond belief,” McArthur told Patch. “I feel an enormous sense of not only relief but freedom that we can finally do something in Pennsylvania that I’ve been dreaming of for years.”

The official wedding date is still to be set.

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