Delaware’s First Same-Sex Marriage License

The marriage license issued to then-state Senator Karen Peterson and her partner Victoria "Vikki" Bandy was Delaware's first same-sex marriage certificate.
July 1, 2013, Wilmington, DE

Composition of Vikki Bandy and Karen Peterson overlaid on the first Same-Sex marriage license. Their signatures are seen below their names.
Vikki Bandy (left) and Karen Peterson (right) images over laid onto their Marriage License and Certificate

In 2013, Delaware became the eleventh state to legalize same-sex marriage. Then-state Senator Karen Peterson, who came out as a lesbian in an effort to sway her fellow lawmakers to support the marriage equality bill, and her longtime partner, Victoria “Vikki“ Bandy, became the first same-sex couple to be legally wed in Delaware.

Delaware’s legal acceptance of and protections for LGBTQ+ residents has been ongoing since the late 1960s, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that lawmakers in Legislative Hall would begin passing laws protecting queer Delawareans.

By 2009, more than a decade after lobbying efforts first began to establish a sexual orientation non-discrimination law, Senate Bill 121 finally granted that right. Those efforts also paved the way for community leaders to form a statewide advocacy organization for equal protections for the queer community. The first order of business for the Equality Delaware Foundation, established in 2010, and its lobbying arm, Equality Delaware Inc. (formed in 2011), was drafting and raising support for legislation supporting civil unions in Delaware.

A blue bumper sticker with yellow text reading “I am a Delawarean for Marriage Equality!”
Equality Delaware’s Marriage Equality Bumper Sticker circa 2012. Image courtesy of Mark Purpura

Around that same time, President Barack Obama repealed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on a national level, allowing queer people to serve openly in the military. In April 2011, then-Delaware Governor Jack Markell signed Delaware’s Civil Union and Equality Act, which made civil unions legal as of January 2012 and gave same-sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples. More than 550 civil unions were performed the first year civil unions were deemed legal. The first couple to receive a civil union was Lisa Goodman, president of Equality Delaware, and her wife, Drew Fennell, former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware (ACLU-DE).

A newspaper article with the headline, “‘I Don’t Have Horns’ Senator made decision to come out to add weight to debate.”
The cover of the May 9, 2013, edition of Delaware’s News Journal.

On the heels of the success of civil unions, Equality Delaware launched efforts to create a same-sex marriage bill. In addition to letter-writing campaigns and countless phone calls, many queer Delawareans traveled to the state’s capital to testify on the need for legal relationship recognition. At this point in Delaware history, there had been no openly queer legislators elected. During debates over the Marriage Equality Bill (also known as House Bill 75), state Senator Karen Peterson, a Democrat from Stanton, Delaware, came out publicly as a lesbian. By then, she had heard her fellow legislators make homophobic comments such as “being gay is a choice” and being gay is a “behavioral issue.” Following the testimony of a Catholic priest who described homosexuality as a sin and said the church is praying for “the sinners,” Peterson, a Catholic herself, knew she had to speak up.

She began her testimony on May 7, 2013, by saying:

I think it’s so interesting that my bishop would send a priest here today to rail against same-sex marriage. Just a couple weeks ago, we debated the death penalty. My bishop didn’t see fit to send a priest here to speak against killing people, but rails against people loving each other. The irony is not lost on me.

She continued, speaking of her loving relationship with her partner of twenty-four years, Victoria “Vikki” Bandy:

My partner Vikki and I have been together for 24 years. We exchanged vows in the presence of a minister 23 years ago, and last year we entered into a civil union. Neither of us chose to be gay, any more than heterosexual people choose to be straight. Like you, I didn’t wake up one morning and say, todays the day. I’ve got to decide whether I want to be straight ot gay. Nobody gets to make those decisions any more than we decide whether to be tall or short, Black or white. We are what God made us. We don’t need to be fixed. We’re not broken, and we, like all other Americans, should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If my happiness somehow diminishes your marriage, then you need to work on your marriage.

A white woman with short blonde hair is seen reading her testimony with a microphone on the House floor.
Former state Senator Karen Peterson is photographed during a “coming-out” on the Delaware House of Representatives floor on May 7, 2013. Photo courtesy of Karen Peterson

At the end of the debates, the Civil Marriage Equality and Religious Freedom Act of 2013 passed the House of Representatives with a vote of 23-18. It passed the Delaware Senate with a vote of 12-9 and was signed into law on May 7, 2013, less than thirty minutes after votes were cast. Markell signed the bill on the landing of the stairway in Legislative Hall, surrounded by a crowd of people. That day, Peterson was unsure if she was going to come out so publicly. But after she did, she said she received emails from all over the world from people who had heard her speech. One man emailed to ask her permission to put a quote from her testimony, “If my happiness somehow diminishes your marriage, then you need to work on your marriage,” on a T-shirt. The supportive stranger made sure to send her a copy, as well.

Two white women each carry bouquets of flowers as they greet supporters outside. Protesters, police and barricades can be seen in the background.
Former state Sen. Karen Peterson, left, and Vikki Bandy are photographed after receiving their marriage license on July 1, 2013.

In a 2023 oral history interview with the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Peterson recalled how Equality Delaware then asked if she and Bandy would be the first couple married under the new law that took effect on July 1, 2013, just hours after the end of the state’s marathon-style final day of legislative session:

So, I get married at eight o’clock in the morning after I was working all night? I don’t know about that. But, you know, Vikki said to me, ‘Look, you’re used to the hate mail and so why subject some young couple to that kind of abuse? You’re used to it. You’re in politics. So we should go first…’ So I said yes, that we would do it.

After filling out the paperwork and concluding the marriage ceremony, Peterson and Bandy walked out of the building to crowds of hundreds of people cheering.

Two white women stand outside greeting a crowd of supporters. On the right are a line of police officers and barricades to protect the newlyweds.
Former state Sen. Karen Peterson (in white) and partner Vikki Bandy greet a crowd of supporters after becoming the first couple to receive a same-sex marriage in Delaware on July 1, 2013

On that first day of the new marriage equality law, Delaware saw 108 marriage ceremonies, with 53 in New Castle County, 16 in Kent County, and 39 in Sussex County. Although it was a joyous moment for many Delawareans, members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, protested the event. Peterson recalled that police closed the street in front of the city council building in Wilmington where they were wed to keep protestors away from the celebration.

Two white women slow dance together indoors. Next to them is a table with a large wedding cake.
Karen Peterson, left, and partner Vikki Bandy dance at their wedding reception

Peterson, who was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, and moved to Delaware with her family as a preteen, was first elected to the Delaware State Senate in 2001. After graduating high school, she attended night classes at the University of Delaware while working full-time and later earned a paralegal certification from Widener University, and eventually a liberal arts bachelor’s degree from Neumann College. Prior to holding statewide office, she was elected as New Castle County’s first woman and one of the youngest council presidents in 1980, when she was just thirty years old.

It was also in the early ’80s that Peterson first met other LGBTQ+ people and began attending conferences of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Washington, D.C.

She had first realized she had romantic feelings for women when she was 19, and while she publicly attended NOW meetings and supported legal remedies for addressing gender disparities, she said she “had to stay under the radar” in terms of her sexuality.

Peterson met Bandy, who was friends with one of her coworkers, in 1989 when the three of them went out to lunch after an event. After lunch, Bandy and Peterson walked to Rodney Square and talked for hours, sharing personal stories with each other. They said there was an instant connection through shared interests in woodworking, rescuing animals, and being homebodies. Bandy then asked Peterson to go see a movie, and they went out to see Dead Poets Society (Peterson worked on the child labor contracts for the movie in her role at the Department of Labor). They still have the ticket stubs, and said they’ve been together since that day.

Two ticket stubs from June 16, 1989 screening of the Dead Poets Society at the Christiana Mall Theater. Tickets priced as $3.50.
Ticket stubs from Karen Peterson and Vikki Bandy’s first date to see the movie Dead Poets Society.
Two white women with short hair are seated on the beach near the ocean in beach chairs.
Karen Peterson and Vikki Bandy enjoy a day on the beach in 1989.

Though the coworker who introduced them knew Peterson was gay, she continued to keep her sexuality a secret in the office. In 1997, Peterson was inducted into the Delaware Women’s Hall of Fame for her impactful years of public service. Bandy and Peterson moved in together in 1990. Bandy described their relationship, which the couple said always felt like a marriage, as a “really gentle relationship.”

Two white women with short hair pose with 4 dogs on a floral couch
Karen Peterson and Vikki Bandy pose with their four dogs sometime in the 1990s.

Bandy was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1950. She studied physical education at Ohio University, leaving her junior year to become a flight attendant out of the Philadelphia International Airport. She moved to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1971. A decade later, she began working for an independent company conducting property assessments for New Castle County’s 1983 reassessment. She then obtained a real estate appraisal license, working as an appraiser before founding her own company so that she could work from home and care for their dog, which suffered from an autoimmune disease. In Fall 2009, Bandy was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer. During treatment, she continued to work, and decided to retire once the treatment had been completed. Despite the five-year life expectancy after diagnosis, as of 2023, she has survived the cancer diagnosis for thirteen years.

Two white women with short hair are pictured smiling at the camera.
Vikki Bandy and Karen Peterson circa 1990.

Just weeks before Delaware’s momentous step toward equality, the federal government also made impactful progress when, on June 26, 2013, the Defense of Marriage Act was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Goodman noted in a 2023 oral history interview that Delaware’s same-sex marriage bill was cited in that case, which tossed out the narrow view that marriage was defined only by the union of one man and one woman.
A year later on June 30, at another marathon-style final day of the legislative session, some of Peterson’s colleagues prepared a large cake to celebrate Peterson and Bandy’s first wedding anniversary. “Interestingly enough, there were some Republican senators who would not take a piece of cake,” Peterson recalled. Kenneth Boldon, the Clerk of the Peace who married Peterson and Bandy, attended the early-morning anniversary celebration before presenting his copy of their marriage certificate to the Delaware Historical Society’s Collection.

Four people pose for a picture inside the Clerk of the Peace’s office. Two county officials in black robes smile at the camera.
From left to right are Karen Peterson, Judge Barbara Crowell, Kenneth Boulden (Clerk of the Peace), and Vikki Bandy, photographed after Peterson and Bandy received their marriage license.

In addition to being part of the first couple to be legally wed in Delaware, Peterson’s long career in public service also included being the primary sponsor of New Castle County’s impactful pay equity study and local legislation requiring New Castle County to include the wife’s name on property records. Peterson also spent twenty-seven years working for the Delaware Department of Labor as an inspector and then director of industrial affairs. She retired from the department in 2001, ran for state Senate in 2002 and retired from public office in 2016. As of June 2023, Peterson and Bandy have been together for 34 years and live in a home they renovated together, still tackling home improvement projects and enjoying their pet dogs.

Photo Courtesy: “Discover Delaware” permanent exhibition at the Delaware Historical Society, The News Journal, May 9, 2013, accessed via Newspapers.com, and Karen Peterson,

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