CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Wyoming has become the latest state to allow same-sex unions, bringing the wave of change to a state where the 1998 beating death of Matthew Shepard galvanized a national push for gay rights.

Gay couples began to apply for marriage licenses Tuesday, shortly after the state began to recognize same-sex unions, albeit far more quietly than in other places where bans were recently struck down.

Hundreds of same-sex couples in Idaho and Nevada flooded clerk’s offices and courthouses in recent weeks and married immediately afterward to cheering crowds.

In Wyoming’s largest city, Cheyenne, however, two couples were licensed as the change went into effect. About 175 miles north, in Casper, Dirk Andrews and Travis Gray were the first of three couples licensed after the state formally dropped its defense of a law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

“It’s surreal,” Andrews said. “We can’t believe it’s happening.”

They plan to marry in few weeks, giving family, friends and supporters time to get to the ceremony.

“Neighbors and friends have been great,” said Andrews, a kindergarten teacher. “Co-workers, for the most part, if they don’t agree, they just don’t talk about it, but they haven’t been mean or negative about it.”

Andrews and Gray have considered going out of state to wed, but they held off in hopes that gay marriage would eventually come to Wyoming, a state shadowed by Shepard’s death for the last 16 years. The gay college student was robbed, beaten and left tied to a fence in freezing weather. He died Oct. 12, days after the attack.

For gay rights’ advocates, Tuesday marked a long-sought victory.

“It’s so incredible to see all of this coming to culmination across the state,” Jeran Artery, executive director of Wyoming Equality, said. “We’ve worked so hard for this for so long and to see these loving committed couples finally have justice, and equality and freedom, it’s really tremendous.”

Wyoming has now joined several other politically conservative states in allowing gay marriage after a series of recent court rulings have struck down state bans as unconstitutional.

More than 30 states now recognize same-sex unions, many – including Alaska and Arizona – coming in changes triggered by a U.S. Supreme Court decision Oct. 6 that refused to hear appeals from states that wanted to defend gay marriage bans.

Gay rights supporters have said bans on same-sex unions are violations of 14th Amendment protections that guarantee equal protection under the law and due process.

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