Same-Sex Marriage: 2 Kentucky Women Getting Married After 20-Year-Long Engagement
"They've been waiting their whole life for this moment," their daughter said.
-- Kentucky couple Karen Morrison and Audrey Morrison have been engaged for more than 20 years, waiting to get legally married in their home state, which only recognized unions between a man and a woman.
Today, their "long, painful" wait is finally over, their daughter Kinsey Morrison, 18, told ABC News, adding that her moms have "been waiting their whole life for this moment."
To celebrate today's 5-4 Supreme Court decision that same-sex couple have the constitutional right to marry, the women celebrated a second proposal at home recorded on video that has gone viral.
In the video, which had almost 200,000 views this afternoon, Kinsey Morrison can be seen and heard screaming and crying with joy in the family's Goshen, Kentucky home as she reads the news of the landmark decision and asks her 2-year-old cousin if she wants to be a flower girl.
At the end of the video, Karen gets down on her knee and proposes for the second time in the couple's relationship.
"We're absolutely elated, and there are no words to describe what it's like," Kinsey Morrison said. "We've always been a family, but finally, after 20 years, the government is now validating we're a family as well. I'm so proud to be their daughters."
Karen Morrison and Audrey Morrison, a retired teacher, have been together for almost 24 years, Kinsey said, including a long-distance relationship for a few years during when they would write love letters back and forth.
Karen, who runs a cancer support community, even legally changed her name. "We wanted to feel and seem like a family as much as possible even though until now the government hasn't recognized that," her daughter said.
The two celebrated their first engagement in a "commitment ceremony," on March, 25, 1995, and they had Kinsey a year later in 1996, Kinsey said. Her parents later had two more daughters -- Jillian Morrison, 16, and Teagan Morrison, 12.
"We're very excited, and we're planning their official wedding now," Kinsey Morrison said. "We're going to have a wedding shower in December, which we're turning into a fundraiser for the Family Equality Council that has helped as so much. Then we're going to have the actual wedding next March 25th, which is the date of their 21st anniversary since they were first engaged."
And though the family is spending the rest of the day celebrating and adding onto their wedding Pinterest boards, Kinsey said the family would be "getting back to work" tomorrow because the LGBTQ+ community still faces many issues that remain unresolved.
"We still have a long road to go," she said. "My parents might be able to get married today but get fired tomorrow because there are still no non-discrimination job policies in Kentucky. There's still a lot of work to be done."