My husband and I married at the Denver County courthouse in 1999. The judge's secretary, a black woman, didn't hide her surprise that I was black and the groom was white. Even on the cusp of the 21st century in the progressive West, I guess it was still shocking for a black woman and a white man to marry. But at least it was technically legal, unlike in Alabama at the time. It wasn't until 2000 that Alabama residents voted to remove a provision from that state's constitution that declared that "the legislature shall never pass any law to authorize...