Congratulations to 2013 X-Mormons of the Year: J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson!!!

It’s an inspiring and exciting story! Couples in California right around Proposition 8 learned that if you don’t get married in the window of time when it’s legal, you might have a long wait before your next opportunity. Failure to block same-sex-marriages legally was apparently an error on the part of the Utah DA’s office, so Seth and Michael didn’t know whether they’d get the formalities done in time to be married in their state.

But they did!! And so Seth and Michael became the first gay couple married in Utah — and consequently became the first joint winners of the William Law X-Mormon of the Year award! (Well, we couldn’t very well just give it to one of them, could we? It was a joint project. 😀 )

Here are some more fun facts about Seth and Michael (credit to Seth):

They are both graduate students at the U. Seth is a social historian working on my masters in US History (specifically the American West, history of sexuality, lgbt history, Mormon history and that all comes together) and Michael will finish his PhD this semester. He’s a social neuroscientist and studies neuro pathways of the brain. They own a tea company called The Queens’ Tea (soon to be called The Queens’ Leaf—long story.)

Seth served a mission in Samara, Russia and Michael served his mission in Seth’s hometown of Phoenix, Arizona — so they both easily qualify as X-Mormon.

Also, Seth wrote a book about downtown Phoenix (published by Arcadia Publishing in 2012) — see the sidebar of his blog for details. He also won a Brodie Award in 2011 — and you can too, if you get yourself nominated in the next week!

Congratulations Seth and Michael!!! May you have many happy years together! 😀