S.F. Honors Same-Sex Newlyweds - All 3000+ Couples
Feb. 23. 2004
By KIM CURTIS, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Hundreds of people gathered Sunday to honor San Francisco's newly married same-sex couples as politicians continued to debate whether the mayor overstepped his authority in allowing the unions.
About 2,000 people attended a mass wedding reception for the couples at the Hyatt Regency Hotel's Grand Ballroom, which was decorated with purple and white balloons. Well-dressed couples wearing heart-shaped red, white and blue stickers that said "Freedom to Marry" arrived before the event.
The marriage of Del Martin, 83, and Phyllis Lyon, 79 — longtime leaders in the city's lesbian community who have been together 51 years — was the focal point of the celebration. They were the first of more than 3,000 gay couples married in San Francisco beginning Feb. 12.
City Hall was closed Sunday, but city officials were expected to resume issuing same-sex marriage licenses Monday, despite protests from conservative groups and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Two judges last week denied requests by conservative groups to immediately halt same-sex marriages in the city and find the licenses already issued to be invalid.
Schwarzenegger has directed state Attorney General Bill Lockyer to take action and stop the marriages, which were authorized by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
"In San Francisco, it is license for marriage of same sex. Maybe the next thing is another city that hands out licenses for assault weapons and someone else hands out licenses for selling drugs, I mean you can't do that," Schwarzenegger said Sunday on NBC.
"We have to stay within the law," he said. "There's a state law that says specific things, and if you want to challenge those laws then you can go to the court."
San Francisco sued the state after it started allowing same-sex weddings. It claims the gay marriage ban violates the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.
Newsom said on CNN's "Late Edition" that there was no basis for comparing laws on gay marriage to gun control.
"It's not about AK-47s," he said. "It's not about these other hypotheticals. It's about human beings. It's about human dignity. ... It's about, I think, holding truth, faith and allegiance to the Constitution."
Lockyer, a Democrat who may run against Schwarzenegger in 2006, said Sunday that he will defend state law against San Francisco's lawsuit, but bristled at the idea that Schwarzenegger can tell him what to do.
The governor can direct some parts of state government, such as the California Highway Patrol, "but he can't direct an independently elected attorney general," Lockyer said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Lockyer said he does not expect San Francisco's challenge of the state's gay-marriage ban to succeed.
"I have a healthy regard for their theories even though it is not the law. We are obligated to defend the law, not some wished-for change in policy," Lockyer said.
At the huge wedding reception Sunday, some of the couples said the same-sex marriages were strengthening their families.
"This is a great thing for us," said Laura Bauer, who married her partner of eight years last Monday and attended the reception with their 5-year-old daughter. "With everyone talking about family, now we can give our daughter a family and no one should take that away from us."
Also Sunday, the same-sex wedding spree in San Francisco gave greater meaning to an annual gay and lesbian wedding expo in Los Angeles.
Carly Foster, 29, of Agoura Hills, married Caprice Fowler in San Francisco on Feb. 15, but she was among the estimated 2,000 people who attended the expo because the couple plan to renew their vows.
"I hope the state will back our marriage," Foster said. "If they don't, it will send a message that we don't mean anything."
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