Man says DC marriage license clerk confused New Mexico with foreign country

WASHINGTON (FOX 5) - A New Mexico resident applying for a D.C. marriage license hit a snag earlier this month after a court clerk mistakenly thought he was a citizen of a foreign country.

According to the Las Cruces Sun News, Gavin Clarkson, who lives in Las Cruces, said he and his then-fiancee were at the D.C. Courts Marriage Bureau on Nov. 20 where they were applying for a marriage license.

The clerk wouldn't accept Clarkson's New Mexico driver's license as proof of his identify, the Sun News said, and instead requested an international passport in order to get the document.

"You know you are from flyover country when you are applying for a marriage license, give them your New Mexico driver's license, and they come back and say "my supervisor says we cannot accept international driver's licenses. Do you have a New Mexico passport?" Clarkson said in a Facebook post.

Clarkson, who was a recent candidate for New Mexico secretary of state, said the clerk had to check with the supervisor twice before finally being given the approval to accept his New Mexico license. "The new Mrs. Clarkson thinks that the most hilarious part was when the clerk complimented me on my English," Clarkson added on Facebook, saying that his wife immigrated from Argentina in 1994.

Clarkson told the Sun News that the whole ordeal took about 20 minutes and the clerk did apologize. The newly married couple, and other couples in line, laughed about the incident.

A spokesperson for District of Columbia Courts acknowledged the mistake made by the clerk. "We very much regret the error and the slight delay it caused a New Mexico resident in applying for a DC marriage license," Leah H. Gurowitz, director of media and public relations for D.C. Courts told the Sun News in a statement.

Clarkson, who is also a member of the Choctaw Nation, told the Sun New it may have been easier if he would have showed the clerk his tribal identification.

See the Full Story at Las Cruces Sun News

FOX 5 reported on this story from Washington, D.C.