Same-Sex Marriage 2.0 in San Francisco

guest post by mikl-em

The Gay Marriage Chariot

JUST MARRIED FINALLY …and… NO STOPPING. I like that.

Four years ago the first same-sex marriage in California history was successfully conducted. That same couple had another wedding ceremony in San Francisco yesterday. This followed a reboot of the legal system which had thrown an error upon seeing two gender=F values on the marriage certificate. Large programs like California sometimes do need methodical debugging. But there’s a history here of gradual improvement on important functions like Environment and Equality. Hoping that this trend continues.

I had the tremendous pleasure of being in a huge crowd yesterday outside San Francisco City Hall to celebrate the first same-sex marriage since this right was upheld in California. It was a great day! Unfortunately we didn’t get a glimpse of the couple, but it was a very exciting and positive nonetheless (in spite of some rather negative protesters, who were few but carried big signs). I took some pix & videos, and wrote it up on Flickr. See the description of each pic for more details.

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the couple who were married in SF, are in their 80’s. They have been together for 50+ years and have been activists and community-builders throughout. Gay.com has a great article with more details about their wedding and the wedding of Robin Tyler and Diane Olson from LA (shown below) who have tried every year for 8 years to get a marriage license on Valentine’s Day.

First gay wedding in California!

The SF Chronicle’s website has a great archive of coverage of the issue of same-sex marriage in California. Here’s coverage on yesterday from the BBC.

photos by Gay Weddings & mikl-em

mikl-em
Mikl-em

Actor, nerd, poet, producer, writer mikl-em made his name short so you wouldn't have to. In addition to his blog you can find his writing in "Hi Fructose" magazine and witness him almost life-sized in various plays at The Dark Room Theater in SF's Mission district.

He tends to write about theater, humor, San Francisco culture and history, and stuff that's just plain weird. He thanks Scott for sharing the keys to the Laughing Squid virtual HQ and promises to uphold whatever it is that the mirthful cephalopod would prefer to be uplifted.