Couples who tie the knot in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection pay an $80 fee to obtain their marriage license, which one member of the couple can then use as proof to have his or her last name changed on myriad documents, like a driver’s license and Social Security card. David Conners and Misha Isaak, who were legally married in California in 2008, were eager to share the same last name and begin their lives as a married couple. But because Pennsylvania law does not recognize same-sex marriage, they have spent more than a year working to secure the same last name, and in the process have had to shell out more than 10 times the price of a marriage license.
Conners and Isaak, who have been together for six years, celebrated a private religious ceremony in Pennsylvania in May 2008 and the following month, while on the West Coast, the pair decided to also have a legal ceremony, as same-sex marriage was sanctioned in California for several months that year.
Conners said the pair was eager to be legally married — and share the same last name.
“We want to have a family, that’s why we got married,” he said. “We want to be a unified family unit so our kids can have the same last name, just as we did when we were growing up. It’s pretty traditional, but that’s what we want.”
Conners said he volunteered to change his name to Isaak as, since the two have been together, he’s converted to Judaism and his partner’s name is more traditionally Jewish — the faith in which the couple will raise the children.
Although Conners could have had his name changed at the courthouse in California, he said the clerk advised him to wait until he got back home to Pennsylvania and go the route of a court order to ensure the Keystone State recognized it.
Heterosexual couples who marry can indicate on their marriage-license application which partner, if either, plans to change his/her name and that is reflected in the final license; however, same-sex couples or other individuals looking to change their names must jump through a series of complicated — and costly — hoops to achieve the same goal.
Conners started the process in 2009 and said that right off the bat he was confused, as the Philadelphia court system has no tangible list of steps same-sex couples need to take to change their names. He eventually found an application online, which he submitted electronically, along with scans of several accompanying documents, such as the couple’s birth certificates and Social Security cards. The following week, however, he received an e-mail saying the application was rejected because the couple didn’t include their fingerprints, which Conners said was not stated in the application.
The pair got fingerprinted and sent in scans of their prints but, after not having heard anything for several more weeks, Conners contacted the courthouse and was told they were supposed to have dropped off the fingerprints in person. Isaak did so, but after several more weeks of no news, the couple was told their application had “fallen through the cracks.”
Once the application was located, the couple was scheduled for a name-change hearing last month, before which they were told they would need to advertise the change in two local newspapers — in order to protect against debtors who are trying to evade creditors with a name change.
A clerk at the courthouse advised the couple to place the ads in the Legal Intelligencer and either the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News or Philadelphia Tribune.
Conners inquired about placing the ad in PGN instead of one of the large dailies to cut down on the cost, but said his request was passed throughout a circle of courthouse employees, none of whom was able to give him an answer. A clerk eventually brought his request to a judge, who approved it, but Conners had already placed ads in the Intelligencer and the Tribune to ensure they ran before last month’s hearing.
While the ad requirement may be a holdover, it’s a costly one. The Intelligencer ad cost the couple $170, and the Tribune charged $240 — which added on to the $440 they already paid in court filing fees and judgment searches, all totaling $850.
Amara Chaudhry, director of Mazzoni Center’s legal department, said that because same-sex couples have to pursue a court order as opposed to a marriage license, many are forced to pay up to $1,500 for the whole process.
“For different-sex couples, the marriage is recognized so the license itself serves as official documentation, but for same-sex couples they aren’t able to have that, so the money is a very big thing,” she said.
At last week’s hearing, a judge approved the name change and Conners was expected to receive an e-mail confirmation of the signed court order this week.
But there’s still quite a long way to go before the name change is fully implemented.
“What is so frustrating to me on a personal level is that I’ve been doing this for about a year now, and this is only just the start of the process,” Conners said.
Conners will now need to bring the court order to agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Department of Transportation in order to have his name changed on those documents, and also plans to follow up about his bank accounts, 401(k) plan, utility bills, student loans, cell-phone account, tax documents and passport.
Each agency has its own procedures — some with fees — associated with name changes, which heterosexual married couples usually also have to pay.
While Conners ackowledged the endless red tape he and Isaak faced is not limited to same-sex couples, he said the situation has illuminated the way Pennsylvania law views same-sex vs. heterosexual couples.
“If we were getting married, all we would have had to do was just check off a box. Instead, we’ve spent a year trying to get this done.”
But maybe that will change sooner rather than later: A bill has been introduced in the Pennsylvania House that would legalize same-sex marriage, while a bill providing for civil unions is slated to be introduced later this month.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].