Jack Evans and George Harris on their wedding day. (Photo by Danny Fulgencio)
Almost a year to the day after he and longtime partner George Harris tied the knot in a celebration that was covered all over the country, Jack Evans has died. He was 86 years old.
Northaven United Methodist Church, where the couple held a marriage ceremony before they could legally wed, posted on its Facebook page that Evans died last night at Baylor Hospital.
Evans and Harris married just hours after the Supreme Court made it a legal right for all same-sex couples. They spent more than 50 years together, and were first in line to obtain a marriage certificate. Their legal marriage took place in the Records Building at City Hall on June 26, 2015. But before that, they held a church service (check out the photos) overseen by Rev. Bill McElvaney at Northaven United Methodist Church, to protest the church’s vow not to conduct same-sex weddings.
“These inhumane actions by the UMC, favoring law over love, the Book of Discipline over the Book of Discipleship — that is, the New Testament — cruelty over compassion, constitute the Methodist version of Inquisition in the 20th and 21st centuries,” McElvaney told the Northaven congregation when he announced his plans to begin officiating same-sex marriages despite the Methodist law against it.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced yet, but this story will be updated when that information becomes available.
