In 1967, Liane Peters, an immigrant from Germany, fell in love with a quiet, handsome man she worked with at a Miami bakery. The couple went together to the Dade County courthouse and asked for a marriage license. But she was white and he was black, and a county judge turned them away.

Two months earlier, the United States Supreme Court had struck down laws across the country forbidding interracial marriages, and the waves of resistance that rippled across the South took years to dissipate.

Legal experts suggest that history might hint at how the coming months will unfold, as a handful of defiant clerks across the South and Midwest refuse to abide by the Supreme Court's ruling last month that legalized gay marriage.