Melissa Etheridge & Tammy Lynn Michaels To Legally Marry

 
 
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  • Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, 2007
  • Singer Melissa Etheridge rehearses for her performance later in the day at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008

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    Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, 2007

  • AP

    Singer Melissa Etheridge rehearses for her performance later in the day at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008

 
 

FIRST PUBLISHED: October 10, 2008 2:41 PM EDT
LAST UPDATED: October 10, 2008 2:57 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES, Calif. --

Melissa Etheridge and her longtime partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, are to wed legally, Access Hollywood has confirmed.

“They do plan on getting legally married here in California in the near future,” a rep for the activist and rocker told Access.

Melissa became engaged to former “Popular” star Tammy Lynn in April 2003.

The couple married in Malibu in September of the same year, before same sex marriages were legally recognized in California.

However, in May 2008, the California Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Since the ruling, a host of longtime gay couples including George Takei and Brad Altman, and Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, married.

But a November ballot initiative — California’s Proposition 8, “Protect Marriage,” is aimed at reversing the ruling. If passed, it would define a legally recognized marriage as between “a man and a woman,” according to the Prop. 8 Web site.

A host of Hollywood stars both straight and gay have donated to the No on Prop. 8 campaign aimed at defeating the proposed California Constitutional amendment.

As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, Pete Wentz and his band Fall Out Boy, T.R. Knight and comedian Chelsea Handler have all contributed to the No on Prop. 8 campaign.

Copyright 2009 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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