Richfield Couple Puts Local Face on Gay Marriage Debate: No. 8 Story of the Year

Richfield Patch covered a lot of different stories, topics and events throughout 2012, but there were a few that stood out as the most interesting, important or possibly infamous to our readers. The following is the No. 8 story of the year.

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Rev. Dr. Robyn Provis and her wife Kathy Luebbe found love online after both were married to men, had children, and for many years lived the life they thought they were supposed to.

“It wasn’t part of my radar to think of myself as gay,” Kathy told Richfield Patch last summer. “I just thought, ‘If you work long enough and hard enough, these attractions will go away.’”

After 8 years together, the Richfield residents who were married in Toronto, Canada, told their story to Patch readers as the state was preparing to vote on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage between one man and one woman. As we all know, that measure was defeated.

"It’s just so basic to want to marry the person that you love, to make a covenant with that person," Robyn, who was always an openly gay member of the clergy, said. "There is such a misnomer that this is something that you would oppose despite your faith. I oppose it because of my faith.”

Their story garnered dozens of comments, well over 100 Facebook recommendations, and thousands of page views, making it one of the top Richfield Patch stories of the year.

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See all related stories:

• Pastor: Withholding Marriage Rights is a 'Tragic Misuse of Our Electoral Process'

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