In the News
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More than two dozen gay Arab men arrested at a mass wedding could face government-ordered hormone treatments, five years in jail and a lashing.
February 12, 2004
San Francisco made history by granting the first ever same-sex marriage license to a prominent lesbian couple as part of a challenge to a ban on gay marriage. Longtime activists Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, who have been a couple for over 51 years, said their vows at city hall after Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered officials to wed gay couples and issue marriage licenses in an act of civil disobedience against a state law that bars same-sex marriages.
Lyon and Martin stood facing each other and beamed when a city official pronounced them not husband and wife but “spouses for life.” After their brief ceremony they were going home to rest and did not plan anything to celebrate. The couple seemed proud of what they had done. “Why shouldn’t we” be able to marry? Phyllis asked. The mayor was not present at the morning ceremony but later presented the newlyweds with a signed copy of the state constitution with the sections related to equal rights highlighted.
The two official witnesses for their nuptials were Kate Kendell, director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and former city official Roberta Achtenberg.
Congratulations, gals!
Postscript
The high court dismayed Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon the following August 12 by nullifying same-sex marriages. “Del is 83-years-old and I am 79,” Lyon said. “After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.”
…then again on June 16, 2008 cheers filled San Francisco’s City Hall shortly afterpm as longtime couple, partners for more than 50 years, began their second wedding — and their first legal union. Del died two months later. Unfortunately, the passage of California’s Proposition 8 in November 2008 restricted marriages to opposite sexes only.
Click here to visit the old Gay Marriage Page.
“I just don’t get the gay marriage debate. I really don’t. It seems the only argument you can make against it is based on religious values — and our first amendment implies separation of church and state.”
— Chris Evans
Local marriage equality activists
Local marriage equality activists annually make their point at the County Administration Building on Valentine’s Day, but gay and lesbian couples continue to be turned away from making their commitments legal (even after a three-mile march from Hillcrest).