Sound Off: Should gay couples married in Iowa get to share the same last name in Nebraska?

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The story: They're married now, and they want to share a last name.

Bambi and Sarah Fentress.

It's that simple on the surface.

But Nebraska's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and prejudice stand in the way, the two women say.

The couple married legally in Iowa on May 4, after Iowa's Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriages were legal there.

On June 11, they had a wedding in Lincoln with more than 75 friends and relatives.

Bambi Smith wore a white dress and Sarah Fentress a black tuxedo and purple vest. No one in the wedding party wore shoes. They shared a pink, heart-shaped cake.

But when the couple went to change Smith's name on her driver's license to Fentress, a manager at the local Department of Motor Vehicles Office -- after 20 minutes of consultation -- said she could not.

The couple's Iowa marriage license wasn't valid in Nebraska.

A July 2 letter from Gov. Dave Heineman in reply to questions from the couple gave this explanation: The state's constitutional amendment, passed by voters in 2000, "prevents the state from recognizing your marriage as valid," Heineman wrote.

Changing the name on the driver's license "would be unconstitutional," he said.

That amendment, the most conservative in the nation at the time, says "only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska" and that "the uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid."

But Fentress says she knows other same-sex couples, married in other states, have gotten a shared married name on Nebraska driver's licenses since the amendment passed.

As part of a former job, she said, she went to the DMV with a same-sex couple to get those licenses.

Fentress and Smith fear the media attention they got -- they were the first couple in line to get their marriage license in Council Bluffs when same-sex marriage became legal there in late April -- might have made them more of a target.

Smith could get her name changed legally through the courts, but that costs money the couple doesn't have.

And there is the principle, they say. They are married. They want to share a last name.

The two believe time eventually will erase the prejudice. Attitudes and laws will change.

For many younger voters, same-sex relationships is not an issue, Fentress said.