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New York City is seeing an increase in marriages in the weeks since Donald Trump's reelection. Gwynne Hogan is a reporter for the local news site, THE CITY, and she reports it's a trend that's also playing out elsewhere, as couples concerned about immigration status or the future of same-sex marriage push up their weddings.
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GWYNNE HOGAN, BYLINE: New York City's Marriage Bureau in Lower Manhattan is kind of like a DMV, but better lit and way more romantic. And it does not take long to find a couple that's here as a direct result of Trump's election last month.
PET: Oh...
HANNAH: That's definitely why we're here.
HOGAN: Hannah and Pet are both in their late 20s. They declined to give their last names because Hannah's parents aren't on board with their relationship.
HANNAH: Yeah, we're wife and wife.
PET: Yes, we've just - yeah.
HOGAN: Hannah says they decided to get married the night of the election. They were concerned about the future of gay marriage and also about Pet's immigration status.
HANNAH: You know, we're going to do this in a couple years. Why not just give this down legally?
HOGAN: New York City has seen an increase in marriages since the election. Thirty-three percent more licenses issued this November compared to the same month last year, according to the city clerk. NPR reached out to a dozen county clerks across the country and found more than half said they'd seen similar increases.
DOUGLAS NEJAIME: I'm not at all surprised.
HOGAN: That's Douglas NeJaime, a law professor at Yale University who specializes in family and constitutional law.
NEJAIME: There is certainly a genuine fear of marriage being taken away, but I think it's also this more generalized fear that LGBTQ rights are on the chopping block.
HOGAN: But NeJaime says couples with mixed immigration status may have more immediate concern.
NEJAIME: We've never had a system to allow for non - unmarried partners to be sponsored for immigration status, so marrying for that purpose makes complete sense.
HOGAN: NeJaime says he's skeptical the Supreme Court will overturn the 2015 Obergefell ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. But if that does happen, there's now other protections under federal law, like the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act that requires states to recognize marriages that happen in other states.
NEJAIME: So a couple could still get married in New York and go to a hostile state, and under federal law they should be treated as married.
NICHOLAS CAYCEDO: Cheers.
RYAN ADDARIO: Oh...
CAYCEDO: To gay marriage.
HOGAN: Another couple who pushed up their wedding after the election, Ryan Addario and his new spouse are celebrating their new legal status at a busy Upper West Side restaurant.
ADDARIO: It feels like opening night of the rest of our lives.
HOGAN: His husband Nicholas Caycedo says they're marrying in solidarity with future generations of queer people, where marriage might not come as easily.
CAYCEDO: To be able to say, and to stand in front of someone and say my husband is something special to me.
HOGAN: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks marriages nationwide, but that data takes several years to compile. So for now, it's too soon to say how widespread this Trump marriage bump might be. For NPR News, I'm Gwynne Hogan in New York.
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