The twentieth anniversary of the first same-sex marriages in California
It's Monday. The twentieth anniversary of California's first same-sex marriages. Plus, the state's fast-food workers have a new union.
Twenty years ago today, history was made at San Francisco City Hall.
Gavin Newsom, who had become mayor of San Francisco a month earlier, ordered the city clerk to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the first in California. He said he believed that denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry was a form of discrimination.
More than 4,000 gay couples were married last month at San Francisco City Hall in what supporters dubbed the “Winter of Love.”
The weddings that took place during that one-month period – from February 12 to March 11, 2004 – were annulled by the California Supreme Court in August of that year. But they set off a chain of events that ultimately led to same-sex marriage becoming legal in California in 2013.
“I will always cherish that kind of collective elation that we felt that day, even though everyone there probably knew it wouldn't last,” said Nicholas Parham, who married his longtime partner, James Martin, on Feb. 13, 2004, at City Hall. “We thought, let's just make it fun. Let's show the world what we want.”
As the story goes, Newsom attended President George W. Bush's State of the Union address in January 2004 at the invitation of Representative Nancy Pelosi, a longtime family friend. Sitting in the Capitol, Newsom heard the president speak out against gay marriage.
A few months earlier, they had been ruled legal in Massachusetts, but weddings had not yet started there. And Vermont was the only state at the time that allowed civil unions. Newsom, who had been mayor of San Francisco for just 12 days at the time of the speech, decided he wanted to take a stand. He said he felt a moral obligation to open the doors to gay marriage.
Unlike many other big-city mayors, Newsom had the power to open those doors: In California, marriage licenses are the province of county government, and San Francisco is both a city and a county, with one combined government.
“He's president of the United States, and I'm just a guy who stops signs and revitalizes parks,” Newsom told The Times in 2004. “I know my role. But I also know that I have an obligation that I have taken seriously to defend the Constitution. There is simply no provision that allows me to discriminate.”
His decision caused a frenzy in San Francisco, where people lined up for days to tie the knot.
The morning after Newsom took action, Parham asked Martin at the breakfast table if he wanted to get married. Martin was taken aback: he had just returned from a business trip and had not been following the news.
The two men had been together since 1981, when they met in a newsroom in North Carolina where Martin was working as a reporter. Both men describe it as 'love at first sight'.
Before that morning, marriage had sounded fun, but like, “Wouldn't it be fun to go roller skating on the moon?” said Martin, now 65. But then Parham explained to him what had happened. at the town hall.
“As soon as he said that, I knew what my answer would be,” said Martin, who lives with Parham, now 73, in Noe Valley.
Staying married was more difficult in the eyes of the law than simply reciting their vows that day.
Their marriage was annulled — like all the others from that first month in 2004 — when the California Supreme Court ruled that Newsom had exceeded his authority under state law by issuing the permits.
Martin and Parham were married again at San Francisco City Hall in the summer of 2008, after the court ruled that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry.
About 17,000 same-sex couples married between June and November that year, before California voters passed Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. This time, Martin and Parham's license and the others issued up to that point remained valid, but no more could be issued.
In 2013, Proposition 8 was rejected by the courts and same-sex marriage became legal in California; it has remained that way ever since.
Public opinion on gay marriage has changed significantly since 2004. The Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal nationwide in 2015, and today 71 percent of Americans believe same-sex marriage should be legal, up from 42 percent in 2004. according to Gallup. The numbers are about the same for Californians: 40 percent thought so in 2004, and 75 percent now, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“During San Francisco's historic 'Winter of Love,' people of all backgrounds came together to defend human dignity,” Newsom, who is now governor of California, said in a statement. “In those few weeks we learned to listen to people, not to experts; focus on honesty, not tradition; and err on the side of inclusion.” He added: “The actions of countless individuals have generated overwhelming support for the equality and protections that everyone deserves.”
Parham and Martin have three anniversaries, they told me. One is for the summer they fell in love in 1981. One is from their first marriage, on February 13, 2004. And the third is for the June 2008 date on their second, officially valid marriage certificate.
“Celebrate them all – why not?” Parham said.
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And before you go: good news
Los Angeles has no shortage of large, breathtaking trees. The city's landscape, from the green hillside to the winding gorge, is dotted with diverse plantings, such as coral trees, gum myrtles and of course the tree that has come to symbolize Los Angeles: the palm.
Ryan Bradley of The Los Angeles Times, who claims to have recently converted to the cult of “tree heads,” as he calls them, set out to find the biggest trees in LA. His criteria were simple: the trees he chose had to be accessible to the public and free to visit and they had to tell a story about the city. With a photographer, Bradley visited groves around the city, including one at the Orcutt Ranch in West Hills, where he found a coastal live oak that may be the oldest tree in Los Angeles.
The result is one card of 10 trees which Bradley considered particularly important, either because of their age or because of the role they played in the city's history and development. He also wrote one report of his reporting en route.
“Trees are like that, because they exist on a time scale so different from our own; they connect us to a distant past while testifying to a future we will never experience again,” Bradley wrote. He added: “I have come to realize that what I think makes a tree great is not necessarily its size or age, but its ability to continue living.”