Source: nytimes.com
SAN FRANCISCO — With a quiet pride and a sense of history, hundreds of gay and lesbian couples across California wed on Tuesday, giving a human face to a landmark court decision and a powerful opening salvo in what is expected to be a bruising fall campaign here over the issue of same-sex marriage.
The marriages here and in many counties began just after 8 a.m. Pacific time, with the opening of the clerk’s office. But unlike 2004, when San Francisco broke state law to wed thousands of gay couples in a mad rush, many of Tuesday’s ceremonies had a sense of calm and permanence for gay newlyweds.
“It was so legally ambiguous last time,” said Lorie Franks, 43, who had come to City Hall to marry her partner, AnneMary Franks, in 2004 as well. “It was really touching, but we kind of knew it was on thin ice. This time, to me, feels more real.”
The Franks wedding, conducted in one of 19 locations arranged around San Francisco’s ornate City Hall building, was attended by her three daughters, who wore matching pink dresses and tiaras. “It was entirely their idea,” Lorie Franks said of their costumes. “As soon as they heard we were getting married, they said they wanted dresses.”
In Bakersfield, where couples exchanged vows on a tree-lined patio outside the clerk’s office, reporters and photographers outnumbered people applying for marriage licenses on Tuesday morning. There were no protesters in sight.