by John Lewis & Stuart Gaffney for the San Francisco Spectrum

Wedding photo of John Lewis & Stuart Gaffney in SF City Hall photo by Lee Jewell

Thursday, February 12, 2004 was the happiest and most moving day of our lives — the day we married each other in San Francisco City Hall after seventeen years together. It was the day the unimaginable became reality.

We had the incredibly good fortune to be married at City Hall the very first day — in fact, the very first hour that San Francisco performed same-sex weddings. Just a month earlier, we had made a simple New Year’s resolution: get involved with the growing movement for marriage equality. We learned from the local gay press that February 12, 2004 was the annual "National Right to Marry Day" and that Marriage Equality and Equality California would be holding a noon rally on the steps of City Hall. We decided that John would attend, because Stuart would be tied up with work all day. When John got to the rally and asked Molly McKay, Executive Director of Marriage Equality, what was planned for the day, she exclaimed, "They’re issuing licenses!"

Not knowing that February 12, Lincoln’s Birthday, was a state court holiday, John thought that anti-gay groups could be in court at that very moment, trying to halt the marriages. With the help of a reporter’s cell phone, John was able to catch Stuart at work, and Stuart dashed to City Hall on Muni. As John stood waiting on the City Hall steps, he could sense that something truly historic was taking place. The local, national, and even international press were starting to descend.

When Stuart arrived, we ran to the Clerk’s Office, and after a nerve-wracking half hour or so, we received our wedding license application. Then, it was off to the Recorder’s office, where the first ceremonies were being held. As we entered, CNN was televising live the wedding of the couple that got married right before us. The atmosphere was electric and surreal. What had seemed impossible just hours before was actually happening.

We married a few moments later in what we can describe only as a sacred experience — even with a San Francisco Chronicle reporter scribbling notes and an Examiner reporter snapping photos. Not a single friend or family member was in attendance, and we didn’t know if a court injunction would interrupt us in the middle of saying "I do." But there we were — the two of us, inside City Hall, holding hands and getting married. When we heard the City’s Tax Counsel, who presided over our wedding, announce by virtue of the authority vested in me by the State of California, I now pronounce you spouses for life, we felt something transform within us. We experienced for the first time our government treating us as fully equal human beings and recognizing us as a loving couple worthy of the full respect of the law. And then we kissed — and held each other — for a long time.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported our kiss and the rest of our wedding story as front page news the next morning. Thanks to the internet, friends and family across the country learned the news quickly and began sending us congratulatory e-mail messages and gifts. One gay male friend, not prone to sentimentality, wrote that reading the Chronicle article is "actually … making me cry - with happiness for the two of you and for what it means for all of us." A straight friend wrote that she, her husband and their kids "are jumping over furniture because we're so happy for you two!!!" Stuart’s best friend from second grade, from whom he hadn’t heard in over thirty years, sent a bouquet of flowers. A straight male friend reported: "I cried with bittersweet happiness for you two and for the countless years of hiding and suffering that same sex couples have had to endure."

This outpouring of joy and support from friends and family made us realize how much we had missed by not being able to marry. Friends, family, and co-workers all seemingly knew how to respond to the news of our wedding. One of our most politically active friends asked, "Are you registered?" We first thought she meant "registered to vote," but soon realized she meant "registered at Macy’s." Our seven-year-old niece, who knows us only as "Uncles John and Stuart" and knows nothing about marriage discrimination against same-sex couples, revealed the simplicity of the instinct to celebrate love. When we told her about our wedding, she asked simply, "Why were we not invited?"

We also married to gain the very tangible benefits of marriage that have been denied to us our entire relationship. For years we have been paying thousands of dollars more in income taxes because we have not been able to file jointly. Without marriage, we lack assurance that if we are hospitalized, we will have complete access to each other and be able to participate fully in each other’s medical decisions. Federally recognized marriage would also give us access to over one thousand federal rights unavailable to state domestic partners.

We believe strongly that marriage equality for same-sex couples is one element of a broader effort to attain full equality for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people — coupled or not. Breaking down the barriers to marriage is a very powerful act, because marriage discrimination against same-sex couples is such a powerful expression of the view that LGBT people are "less than equal." Indeed, the straight sixteen-year-old son of some dear friends wrote in a traditional pink newlywed card, "Congratulations on your marriage in defiance of an unjust law."

It did not take us long to realize that we were able to marry not only because of Mayor Newsom’s incredible leadership, but because of many people’s hard work and activism. We recognized that it was time to give back. Instead of an out-of-town honeymoon over the Valentine’s Day weekend, we stayed home and wrote a legal declaration for the ACLU, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Lambda Legal Defense to use in court to defend our marriage. Getting out of town was the last thing we wanted to do anyway; San Francisco was alive with love, jubilation, and freedom, and we did not want to miss it. Over that weekend, seemingly every nook and cranny of San Francisco City Hall was filled with couples professing love and commitment to one another. Such an unending spontaneous expression of love and joy was unprecedented.

Over the following weeks, we realized that our marriage meant so much to us that we needed to do everything in our power to protect it and to ensure that every LGBT American would have the freedom to marry. We lobbied the California Legislature in favor of A.B. 1967, Assemblyman Mark Leno’s bill that would prevent marriage discrimination against same-sex couples in California. With the Assembly leadership firmly behind the bill, the legislation appears headed toward passage and to Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk next year.

Unfortunately, anti-gay rights organizations and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer have asked the the California Supreme Court to revoke our marriage, while George Bush and Republicans in Congress are advocating — for political gain — a federal constitutional amendment to enshrine discrimination against same-sex couples in the United States Constitution.

The attempt to strip us of our marriage carries particular sting for our family because Stuart's parents were an interracial couple who married here in California fifty-two years ago, in 1952. At the time Stuart's parents were married, the California statute books said that interracial couples could not marry, just as today’s California statute books say that same-sex couples cannot marry. But in 1948, the California Supreme Court became the first appellate court in United States history to rule that the laws banning interracial marriage are unconstitutional. Without that ruling, Stuart's parents would have been prohibited from marrying, and we would not be here today.

As we witnessed so much lesbian and gay dignity and love fill San Francisco City Hall during those amazing days in February and March, we could not help but be reminded that Harvey Milk, the first openly gay member of the Board of Supervisors, and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated 25 years ago in that very building largely because of their commitment to lesbian and gay freedom.

We realized that Harvey Milk’s 1978 Gay Freedom Day speech opposing the Briggs Initiative, a proposed amendment to the California Constitution that would have banned lesbian and gay teachers from public schools, had striking relevance today. On that day, Milk urged lesbian and gay people to "fight to preserve your democracy from [those] who are trying to constitutionalize bigotry." He vowed, "We are not going to sit back in silence as 300,000 of our gay brothers and sisters did in Nazi Germany. We are not going to allow our rights to be taken away and then march with bowed heads into the gas chambers. On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight."

If the California Supreme Court takes away our marriages this year, we must not sit idly by. Through litigation, legislation, or the initiative process we will gain full marriage equality in California. We’ve tasted the freedom to marry, and there’s no going back. And we must ensure that Bush’s attempt to write bigotry into the United States Constitution is thwarted — so that marriage equality some day becomes a reality nationwide.

In November 1978, California voters defeated the anti-gay Briggs Initiative by a 2-1 margin. On election night, Mayor Moscone proclaimed in the Castro that from them on "emblazoned upon the principles of San Francisco" will be "liberty and freedom for all, forever …. "

Today, we join Marriage Equality, Equality California, Mayor Newsom, and all people who are San Franciscans in spirit and purpose to continue the proud tradition of Milk and Moscone — to transform the impossible into reality.

GGBA, the first LGBT
chamber of commerce.

Positive Resource Center, providing employment services and benefits counseling to the SF Bay Area HIV community.

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