During a 1971 Cinco De Mayo event at the Los Angeles gay bar The Closet, Richard Adams (a Filipino-American citizen) met Tony Sullivan (an Australian immigrant). The two began dating and fell in love. But because Sullivan entered the U.S. under a tourist visa, he wasn’t legally allowed to stay long-term.

So, in 1975, in Boulder, Colorado, the two men married. At the time, Boulder County Clerk Clela Rorex issued six same-sex marriage licenses with the local state attorney’s understanding that, because the state’s marriage law only specified “any two persons,” it didn’t explicitly forbid same-sex unions.

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State Attorney General J.D. MacFarlane soon ordered the practice to stop, saying the licenses were void because they lacked legal standing. However, no Colorado court at the time ruled that the marriages had violated state law. In fact, the couple’s attorney, Lavi Soloway, pointed out that Colorado state law held that the formal opinion of a state attorney general does not carry the same force of law as the state’s pre-existing statutes and would have no impact in a judicial proceeding.

Sullivan petitioned the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for permanent residency, a privilege afforded to the legally married spouses of U.S. citizens. However, INS refused to recognize his marriage license and denied his petition.

You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two fa**ots.U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services’ November 24, 1975 letter to married gay couple Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan

As part of its reasoning, the INS cited the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Boutilier v. INS in which the INS rejected the visa application of Canadian native Clive Michael Boutilier because his homosexual orientation was proof of a “psychopathic personality.”

At the time, the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act listed “sexual deviation” as a legal criterion for denying immigrants entry. In its ruling, the Supreme Court upheld INS’ decision, even though the 1952 law didn’t clearly define what a “psychopathic personality” is. The American Psychiatric Association would later declassify homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973.

“You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two fa**ots,” the INS’s reply to the couple stated. “[A] marriage between two males is invalid for immigration purposes and cannot be considered a bona fide marital relationship since neither party to the marriage can perform the female functions in marriage.”

The couple then filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Their lawsuit said INS had violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which guarantees equal treatment under the law to all Americans.

In a 1979 press conference, Soloway noted that many married women, for various reasons, cannot fulfill marital “female functions.” As such, INS’ reasoning would deny federal marriage recognition and legal residence status to all sorts of opposite-sex couples.

“We’re asking the court either to say that this was a lawful marriage under Colorado law and therefore has to be the proper basis for changing immigration status or, if they’re not willing to say that, then we have to get to the question of, is there a violation of the federal guarantee of equal protection of the laws involved in this situation?” Soloway said in the 1979 press conference. “Obviously, that issue has tremendous ramifications, way beyond just the field of immigration.”

A Los Angeles federal judge eventually upheld INS’s decision in a 1985 ruling against Sullivan. He filed an appeal to stop the impending deportation proceedings, stating it would cause “extreme hardship,” but a court denied that petition, too, Esquire reported.

“My belief was if the press knew what we were doing — if we got in the press and stayed in the press —that gave us a measure of safety from the government,” Sullivan told The Washington Post in 2015. “And I think one of the reasons the press decided to be nice to us was because we were so honest.”

In 1985, the couple traveled around Europe for a year and re-entered the U.S. via Mexico in 1986. Afterward, they began speaking publicly as marriage equality advocates. When Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004, Soloway asked if they wanted to wed there, but the couple refused, still convinced of the legitimacy of their Colorado union.

Adams eventually became afflicted with cancer, and by 2012, the couple planned to wed in Washington state. However, before they could do so, Adams died on December 17, 2012, at the age of 65.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually legalized marriage equality nationwide. In an interview that year with Los Angeles’ LGBTQ+ publication The Pride, Sullivan said, “I desperately wish Richard was here with me for this.”

In 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – one of the agencies that replaced INS in 2003 – granted Sullivan permanent residency status. In 2020, USCIS issued him a work permit and a green card, finally recognizing the legitimacy of his marriage.

Then-USCIS Director Leon Rodriguez also responded to Sullivan’s letter requesting a formal apology for the INS’s insulting letter.

“This agency should never treat any individual with the disrespect shown toward you and Mr. Adams,” Rodriguez wrote. “You have my sincerest apology for the years of hurt caused by the deeply offensive and hateful language used in the November 24, 1975, decision and my deepest condolences on your loss.”

Sullivan died in November 2020, but the couple’s decades-long legal struggle was immortalized in the 2015 documentary Limited Partnership, which is currently available to stream online.

In December 2024, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced that the Boulder County Courthouse had been designated a National Historic Landmark for being the first U.S. site to issue a same-sex marriage license.