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A Newark Superior Court Judge has waived the state’s 72-hour waiting period for an Asbury Park same-sex couple so they can be married on the boardwalk after midnight on Oct. 21, the official date a Mercer County Superior Court judge ruled same-sex couples in the state of New Jersey shall be permitted to enter in a civil marriage.

Daniel Baum [above, at right], who applied for a marriage license with his partner Steven Brunner [center] on Friday, drove up to Newark late Sunday to enter Newark Superior Court Judge Nancy Sevilli’s courtroom after a representative from Garden State Equality was successfully able to add his name on the docket for a 9 p.m. waiver, according to Baum [at right, moments after he obtained the waiver].

Garden State Equality is a NJ-based civil rights organization the advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, according to their website.

“Somehow Garden State Equality got me in there,” he said. “They had been calling judges all day down here,” but were unsuccessful in locating a superior court judge in the area who would sign off on the waiver to dismiss the state’s statutory 72-hour waiting period between applying for a marriage license and being issued the license.

Five other couples were also in Sevilli’s chambers alongside their own legal representation for the same reason, said Baum.

“She was nothing but gracious,” he said, adding the judge’s own teenage children, a boy and a girl, were also in the courtroom sitting in the jury box.

“They said they wanted to witness history,” Baum said.

Baum and Brunner will stand alongside same-sex couple Heather Jensen and Councilwoman Amy Quinn as the first of four same-sex couples to exchange wedding vows throughout the state after the stroke of midnight on Monday. They join Jenelle and Lydia Torres of Newark, and Beth Asare and Joanne Schailey of Lambertville, according to a news release from New Jersey United for Marriage [NJUM].

Garden State Equality teamed up with civil rights nonprofit Lambda Legal to launch their NJUM campaign on the Asbury Park boardwalk in July.

We really wanted to do it with Amy and Heather, and Amy and Heather wanted to do it with us,” Baum said. “It felt right, like this is what we are being called to do.”

Baum and Brunner obtained a NJ civil union certificate in 2008, the two met in Asbury Park in 2007. Although some couples hold out-of-state marriage licenses, they wanted to wait until it was legal in the state of New Jersey, Baum previously told the Sun.

Tom Pivinski, an Asbury Park resident and an Episcopalian minister at Trinity Church in the city — who also applied for a marriage license with his partner Malcolm Navias Friday at city hall — will preside over both ceremonies to be held on the boardwalk near Fifth Avenue.

“I just really wanted to do it here. It was imperative,” Brunner said. “This is where we met and that’s what this is all about.”

Baum and Brunner “unofficially” met at an event held at Paradise, a dance club geared toward the gay community located on the waterfront, about seven years ago, Baum said. Baum was single for a while and kept hearing through their mutual friends that they had someone they wanted to set him up with, he said. The two exchanged glances, but did not speak to each other that night.

During the course of the next few days the two kept running into each other on the boardwalk just by chance during Brunner’s daily dog walks and Baum’s morning runs. Brunner’s friends kept asking him if he wanted Baum’s number, but Brunner kept declining.

“I told them if it was supposed to happen, it’ll happen,” Brunner said.

Then, one morning, Baum decided he was going to take a leap of faith.

“I was running and I thought, ‘ok, I’m going to do this,’ and just ran straight into his arms,” Baum said.

They made plans to spent the afternoon on the beach, and have been together ever since.

“It’s a very Asbury Park story,” Brunner said.

[Photo at top: Deputy Clerk Kiki Tomek  assists Steven Brunner [left] and Daniel Baum [right] with their marriage license application Friday.]

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