Marketplace®

Daily business news and economic stories

Same-sex couple in Texas gets married via Skype

Mark Reed and Dante Walkup have been together for 10 years and decided to get married. But they live in Dallas where same-sex marriage is not legal. After doing a little research, they found that the District of Columbia, where same-sex marriages are recognized, does not have clear laws forbidding what are called proxy weddings. So they got married via Skype.

Pulling this off meant flying to Washington to obtain a marriage license, then flying back to Dallas to hold the wedding among family and friends at the W Hotel in Dallas. An officiant in Washington was at the W Hotel there, connected by Skype to the Dallas site, and she appeared on a big screen TV to perform the ceremony. We talk to Mark Reed and Dante Walkup about their unusual wedding.

The wedding, which took place October 10th, is getting a lot of attention lately. That’s partially because the two men managed to circumvent state law and at least kind of get married in Texas. But it also points to the complexities that go along with our rapidly evolving technology. Given how easy it’s becoming to “virtually” travel somewhere through the internet and video technologies, weddings like Mark and Dante’s may become a lot more common.

A symposium was held last week at Michigan State University to dig in to issues that surround what is being called “e-marriage”. A handful of states allow proxy marriages, where one person doesn’t have to be physically present. Montana actually has a double proxy law. We talk to one of the organizers of the symposium, Mae Kuykendall, a professor at Michigan State’s law school. She’s pressing for states and local jurisdictions to start crafting their policy about marriage by proxy now so everyone knows what the law is.

Also in this program, video game writer David Martin Davies joins us to review Rock Band 3. It’s the latest in the popular series and the first to feature a keyboard. David says it’s a lot of fun although we do get to hear him struggle to keep up with “Imagine.”

Latest Episodes

View All Shows
  • Marketplace Morning Report
    4 hours ago
    7:08
  • Marketplace Tech
    10 hours ago
    11:03
  • Marketplace
    21 hours ago
    25:19
  • Make Me Smart
    a day ago
    19:00
  • This Is Uncomfortable
    3 days ago
    56:05
  • Million Bazillion
    24 days ago
    32:45