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The clever way Utah made it easy for hundreds of Chinese same-sex couples to get married

Sometimes you've got to make the law work for you.

china gay marriage, utah gay marriage, online gay marriage
via kris krüg / Flickr / Flickr and Courthouse lover / Flickr

The Old Utah County Courthouse (Provo, Utah) and Shanghai's first gay pride parade.

Utah probably doesn't come to most people's minds when they think of places that are champions of marriage equality. Especially in Utah County, where Provo is located, which has the highest concentration of Latter-day Saints (72%) of any place in the U.S.

Latter-day Saints, known as Mormons, can be excommunicated from the church for acting on LGBTQ feelings and have put large amounts of money into campaigns to make same-sex marriage illegal.

However, two loopholes in Utah County law reported by The Guardian have allowed same-sex couples from across the globe to marry in the state. First, Utah does not have residency or citizenship requirements for marriage licenses. Second, Utah County allows for international marriages online.



The county rolled out online marriages via Zoom during the pandemic, which made it easy for people overseas to get married. All they have to do is fill out some paperwork, pay $100 and hire a licensed officiant. The paperwork is “to verify who they are,” radio host and licensed marriage officiant in Utah Michael Foley told The Guardian, “to make sure they’re of age, that it’s not part of some kind of scam, that it’s not some kind of human trafficking.”

When word of this loophole spread on Chinese LGBTQ websites, same-sex couples from all over the country began virtually flocking to Utah to get hitched. Rest of World reports that more than 200 same-sex couples from China have tied the knot through the county’s digital licensing system since 2021.

In China, same-sex marriages are illegal and marriages conducted overseas aren't recognized but couples are happy to have their relationships recognized by a legal authority somewhere in the world.

However, the Utah provisions are beneficial to residents of the Chinese city of Hong Kong, which has a little more autonomy given its designation as a Special Administrative Region. Hong Kong residents who get married in other parts of the world can apply for dependent visas for their partners. These couples are also allowed to file their taxes as married in Hong Kong.

Even though same-sex Chinese couples aren’t married in the state where they live, having their relationships legally recognized in Utah has strengthened them. It’s a strange situation when couples can escape the tyranny of the state in a place where religious fundamentalism can be just as repressive.

“Even without legal status in China for now, many gay couples … have told me that marriage has made their relationships feel more secure,” Zhijun Hu wrote in ChinaFile. “And, as one friend told me when he and his husband go to a place where marriage equality is the law of the land, their marriage means that they ‘will be treated like a family and not like strangers.’”

Newlyweds Liu Yangming and Zhu Guangyu believe that their marriage ceremony and Utah license have helped to solidify their relationship. “It made our love stronger,” Liu told Rest of World. “My husband was talking more about our responsibilities. Before, we thought we might break up someday, but now we can’t just break up.”

Foley loves being able to help people from around the world realize their dream of being married, even if it means he has to get up at odd hours of the night to accommodate his Chinese customers.

“It just makes me happy,” Foley said. “That’s the stuff that makes me get up at three o’clock in the morning to do it.”

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Airbnb host wakes his guest up in the middle of the night so she wouldn't miss the northern lights

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Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

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People are sharing the weirdest, most unforgettable art they've found in thrift stores

As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another one's treasure.

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A few of the rare finds at Thrift Store Art's Instagram page

As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another one's treasure.

Even though people can easily buy used items on eBay, the thrift store business thrives in America, bringing in an estimated $10 billion annually. At a time when the economy is shaky, thrift stores are a recession-proof business. When times are tough, people love to find a deal, and there's never any end to the fashionistas who roam thrift stores looking for a rare find.

San Francisco surfer and self-proclaimed thrift store junkie Bryan Dickerson has turned his passion for rare treasures into an Instagram page with over 246,000 followers. Thrift Store Art showcases the most bizarre things that thrifters find in stores and leans heavily into strange-looking works of art and clothing with questionable sayings. His crowds of followers send him countless strange finds every day, and he rewards them by calling them rude names in the comments.

But for Dickerson, it's all in fun.

He told Bored Panda that the idea of Thrift Store Art is “not to bash art but to expand what can be considered as art—clothing, album art, book graphics, vacation souvenirs.” Dickerson's foray into thrift store content was a much-needed break from his job as the editor of a news website.

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Guy shares the reason viral gym videos need to end, and it's so spot on

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“This sense of entitlement has gotten out of hand."

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Spin your own sustainable music with the Recycled Records beat machine

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

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When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

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Daughter shares incredible 3D optical illusions painted by her father, who has aphasia

David Hollowell suffered from a traumatic brain injury in 2021, losing his ability to speak. Remarkably, he is still able to express himself through art.

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David Hollowell pictured with his 3D art

For a little over three decades, David Hollowell’s professional life had been dedicated to art. In addition to working as an art professor, his highly acclaimed 3D illusion paintings were shown in prestigious exhibits. In 2018, the 71-year-old began taking his talents to a larger scale, turning his family barn into an immersive mural.

Then, in May of 2021, Hollowell fell off the roof of his home, resulting in a traumatic brain injury leading to aphasia, a disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate through speech or written language.

Though Hollowell couldn’t access words the way he used to, his ability to paint detailed, mesmerizing images remained remarkably intact. And his daughter-slash-self-appointed-TikTok manager, Adrienne, is determined to share his work and his journey with as many people as possible.

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