Love is in the air 

SLO County will start issuing same-sex marriage licenses June 17, along with the rest of California. The date comes one month after the Supreme Court ruled that marriage is an inalienable right.

County Clerk Julie Rodewald said her office is stocked with the new gender-neutral application forms, and ready to serve the public. All a couple needs to become husband and husband or wife and wife, or any combination of the two, is proof of age, a picture I.D., $70, and about 20 minutes. A couple has 90 days to wed from the date the license is granted.

Rodewald said that her office is not planning a coup along the lines that Kern County officials have threatened. Officials there have said they’ll stop performing weddings altogether, a service that the clerk’s office also provides.

“Our staff recognizes that we have a professional duty to perform,” Rodewald said. “And since the [California] Supreme Court ruled on it, this is a part of our duty.”

Although the same-sex ban was lifted in May, opponents of same-sex marriage have made sure that the issue will go before voters in November, as a constitutional amendment.