It's like the Hokey-Pokey. . .

. . . "That's what it's all about."

(from msnbc.com staff and news service reports Msnbc.com staff, KCCI.com, and the Times-Republican contributed to this report. updated 10/19/2011)
"An Iowa couple married for 72 years died holding hands in a Des Moines hospital within 70 minutes of each other last week after a car accident that also injured another couple.

"They're very old-fashioned. They believed in marriage 'til death do you part," Dennis Yeager, the son of Gordon and Norma Yeager, told KCCI.com. The accident that claimed Gordon, 94, and Norma Yeager, 90, happened Oct. 12, when the couple left their State Center home for a drive shortly after 8 a.m. At the intersection of Highway 30 and Jessup Avenue, just west of Marshalltown, Gordon pulled "away from the stop sign and failed to yield to a westbound vehicle," according to Sgt. Joel Ehler of the Iowa State Patrol. The driver of the other car, Charles Clapsaddle, 64, of Marshalltown, was unable to stop to avoid a collision, Ehler said.

Yeager was facing pending action by the Iowa Department of Transportation to have his license removed, but citing privacy concerns, said he could release no additional details on what prompted that action. The Yeagers' children told KCCI.com that their parents never liked being apart ever since Norma Stock married Gordon Yeager on May 26, 1939, in State Center. And they were relieved that the couple was able to spend their last moments together at the intensive care unit of the Marshalltown hospital.
"They brought them in the same room in intensive care and put them together — and they were holding hands in ICU. They were not really responsive," Dennis Yeager told KCCI.com.

Gordon died at 3:38 p.m. surrounded by their family and holding hands with Norma.
"It was really strange, they were holding hands, and dad stopped breathing but I couldn't figure out what was going on because the heart monitor was still going," said Dennis Yeager. "But we were like, he isn't breathing. How does he still have a heart beat? The nurse checked and said that's because they were holding hands and it's going through them. Her heart was beating through him and picking it up."

Norma died at 4:48 p.m., according to KCCI.com. "Neither one of them would've wanted to be without each other. I couldn't figure out how it was going to work," the Yeagers' daughter Donna Sheets told KCCI.com. "We were very blessed, honestly, that they went this way."

The Yeager’s children said the couple complemented each other. "Anybody come over — she was the hostess with the mostess. ... The more she did, the more she smiled," Dennis Yeager told KCCI.com. "Dad would be the center of attention, like, 'Wheee look at me,' and mom was like 'get him away from me!' You know we even got a picture like that." And even though they argued every now and them, "They just loved being together," he said. "He said 'I have to stick around. I can't go until she does because I have to stay here for her and she would say the same thing,'" he said.
The couple reportedly were holding hands Tuesday at their funeral in their casket. Their family said the plan was to cremate them together and mix their ashes."




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Yesterdays news. . .

. . . of the Obama administration's change in stance on the Defense of Marriage Act was most certainly Good News.

Why jettison DOMA to the proverbial sharks? Because. . . "DOMA has been used by federal officials to justify excluding gay couples from a wide range of benefits that are available to heterosexual couples. These include federal health, Social Security, pension and tax benefits, even to gay couples who were legally married in the handful of states that recognize same-sex unions. The Government Accountability Office has estimated that there are more than 1,000 provisions of federal law "in which benefits, rights, and privileges are contingent on marital status or in which marital status is a factor." Widows have been forced to pay estate taxes, where a survivor in a heterosexual marriage would have no tax bill from an inheritance. Federal employees may not enroll their same-sex spouse in federal health plans or take family and medical leave to care for their partner. Same-sex couples cannot file joint income tax returns or benefit from state retiree health insurance plans that are controlled by federal tax law. DOMA even has been used to prevent a gay couple from filing a joint petition for bankruptcy."

Eric Holder said, the section of the law defining marriage as between a man and a woman is unconstitutional, in the administration's view. Importantly for judicial review, Holder says courts also should apply a heightened level of scrutiny that makes it more difficult for laws to be upheld.

Maybe we really ARE evolving.

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