Along with thousands of GLBT couples throughout the city of San Francisco, the state of California and beyond, a handful of San Diego couples made the pilgrimage to San Francisco’s City Hall over President’s Day weekend to obtain marriage licenses. The Gay & Lesbian Times spoke to several of them: Fernando and Michael Lopez-Sager of North Park, Joe Flanigan and Keith Kelly of Hillcrest, Barbara Herrera and Sarah Hubbard of Santee and Gay & Lesbian Times writer Cuauhtemoc Kish and his partner, Jorge Gutierrez, also of North Park.

The Lopez-Sagers, together two and a half Valentine’s Day after hearing about the weddings on CNN. When they learned that City Hall would remain open throughout President’s Day weekend, “We looked at each other and we just kind of knew,” Fernando Lopez-Sager said. “We were out of the house within the hour.”

After arriving at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, they walked around for a couple of hours looking for a hotel and clean restrooms. Because everything was booked solid due to it being Valentine’s Day and President’s Day weekend, the couple decided to walk by City Hall at 5:00 a.m., where they found a line of couples already waiting for it to open. “We were about the eighth couple in line. We pretty much stayed there the rest of the time – we took turns leaving the line to go change in the car and grab a bite to eat. So we didn’t sleep for a couple of days trying to get married. It was really exciting.”

“There was a total void of negativity,” Kish said. “It was a communal love fest of really dedicated people who were committed to one another who wanted to be recognized even if it was going to be very, very short term, depending on how this is going to be handled in the courts and such. That was a whirlwind trip that will never be forgotten, quite frankly, and I was just very proud to even participate, let alone to be part of the people who had actually received the marriage certificate.” Kish and Gutierrez made the trip up to San Francisco and back in 24 hours, flying in Monday morning, Feb. 16. They had just enough time after leaving the courthouse to pick up a bottle of champagne at the airport and jump on their return flight to San Diego.

“We heard about the ceremonies and really didn’t think much of it,” said Flanigan, who, along with Kelly, had left for San Francisco the night of Feb. 12 to attend the International Bear Rendevous. When a friend they were meeting in the city on Saturday asked why they were not getting a marriage license of their own while in town, the couple, who have been together for nine years, went to investigate. “We decided as we were walking over to City Hall if it wasn’t too expensive we would do it. So we got in line, waited about four and a half hours and were told to come back Sunday.”

After an additional four-hour wait on Sunday, Flanigan and Kelly emerged from the courthouse legally married at 12:00 noon. Despite the long wait and bad weather, Flanigan said the atmosphere was festive. “It was a blast,” he said. “People were coming by honking their horns, congratulating everybody, newly married couples would walk out holding their marriage certificate, and everybody was going crazy – it was awesome. It was better than Pride, almost.”

To accommodate the crowds, the mayor’s office distributed tokens to the crowd to use the public toilets in the downtown area, and eventually called in a technician to override the token requirement and keep the bathrooms open to the public.

With City Hall’s statue of Abraham Lincoln holding a large rainbow flag in the foreground, Herrera reported that there were hundreds of bystanders throwing rice, offering wedding cake, toasting each couple that walked out the door of City Hall, shouting and clapping for hours. Kish said a mariachi band played for about an hour after a newly-married Mexican lesbian couple emerged from the courthouse.

“I would have to say the most amazing part of the whole experience was when we walked out of City Hall and there were hundreds of people just cheering for every couple that walked out,” Lopez-Sager said. “That feeling that there was all of this support, and that it was bigger than us – it’s not like we went to get married to prove our commitment to each other, because that was already there. We went because it was a part of growing civil rights for gays and lesbians.”

An enthusiastic crowd drowned out a small group of “bible-thumpers”, Herrera said. People bought food and beverages from bakeries, restaurants and coffee shops, then handed it out for free to the hundreds waiting in line. One woman walked around with a garbage bag filled with brand-new socks, handing them out to the cold and weary.

“We became a family,” Kish said. “The activity even around the lines – people were doing anything from entertaining us with tap dancing from the nearby theatre to giving us coffee, juice, muffins and candy – anything to keep us going and cheering us on. The volunteers were absolutely wonderful.”

There was also no shortage of opportunists. Along with financial planners handing out business cards and travel agents pushing honeymoon packages, professional photographers and video studios were offering to record the nuptials for a fee.

A lot of bonding took place between the couples while they waited in line, Herrera said, and those that had just met that morning exchanged phone numbers and email addresses before leaving.

“It wasn’t just a gay day,” Kish added. “I remember this one father – a young man probably in his mid-twenties – he had two beautiful daughters. They went around the line with a bucket of roses, and each of the daughters passed them out to each couple that went through. It just pulled at your heartstrings over and over and over again, how people supported this issue.”

The marrying frenzy began Thursday, Feb. 12, when San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom directed the county clerk’s office to being issuing marriage licenses to all couples, regardless of gender. Newsom also ordered that City Hall remain open over President’s Day weekend, including the Monday holiday, to accommodate the large volume of GLBT couples seeking licenses. Every city employee who helped to keep City Hall open throughout the weekend volunteered to do so.

“Upon taking the Oath of Office, becoming the Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the State of California,” Newsom said in a Feb. 10 letter to the county clerk. “Article I, Section 7, subdivision (a) of the California Constitution provides that ‘[a] person may not be … denied equal protection of the laws.’ The California courts have interpreted the equal protection clause of the California Constitution to apply to lesbians and gay men and have suggested that laws that treat homosexuals differently from heterosexuals are suspect. … Pursuant to my sworn duty to uphold the California Constitution, including specifically its equal protection clause, I request that you determine what changes should be made to the forms and documents used to apply for and issue marriage licenses in order to provide marriage licenses on a non-discriminatory basis, without regard to gender or sexual orientation.”

“I am, quite frankly, totally amazed at that,” said Kish of Newsom’s decision, “and I am so happy that [Newsom] is part of a straight couple, because it might have worked against us rather than for us in that particular respect. Why he picked this time to do it? I don’t know because I think that that was a political note that is very precarious for him, but bless his little heart that he actually did it.”

Pioneering GLBT rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the subjects of the documentary No Secret Anymore: The Life and Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons, were the first couple to be married at City Hall, on Feb. 12. Since Newsom’s order, over 3,500 GLBT couples have come from all over California, from over 20 states and even from Europe to get married.

In order for couples, who are both over 18 years old, to obtain a marriage license in the state of California, each person must present a valid photo ID with proof of age, a divorce decree if either has been divorced within 90 days prior to the new license being issued and a fee (San Francisco’s fee is $82; San Diego’s fee is $50). A blood test is not required. The license is effective immediately and is valid for 90 days anywhere in the state. Couples do not need to be California residents to get married in the state.

Flanigan said all couples receive the materials the county clerk’s office is required to give to newly licensed couples, including pamphlets on birth control and advice on how to make a marriage last.

Kish felt that his five-year relationship with Gutierrez was of shorter duration than most of the couples that he spoke to – couples who had been together 15 to 30 years and more. “What I was really surprised with, as I stood in line talking to people, were the lesbian couples with kids that were already 8 or 10 years old, standing next to their moms waiting to be part of the bridal party when they got inside,” he said.

Herrera and Hubbard, who have raised four children together, drove up to San Francisco on Sunday. “We didn’t get there until midnight, though, because we had to stop and get rings on the way,” Herrera laughed. “We felt that we needed to have at least something while we were up there.” After securing two interim wedding bands – one from Disneyland for Herrera and another from a more traditional outlet for Hubbard – the couple drove the rest of way to San Francisco, rested briefly and lined up at City Hall Monday morning in the pouring rain. When they arrived at 8:00 a.m. for what would become an eight-hour wait, the line was already wrapped around the fourth side of the block.

“It is so unbelievable,” Herrera said of the atmosphere in line while they waited. “There was no tension, no anger; the only tension was whether or not we would get in. They kept saying that they didn’t know how many people they could let in that day.”

The uncertainty was worth it for the chance to cement their 18-year relationship. “We thought, well, we’re doing history anyway, so we’ll just do it,” she said.

Once inside the courthouse, everything was well organized through the efforts of hundreds of volunteering clerks, typists, cashiers, guides and law enforcement. The couples first waited in line for their license, paid their license and application fees, then went to one of 20 officials spaced throughout City Hall’s rotunda to get married in a civil ceremony. Assemblymember Carole Migden, who authored the California Domestic Partnership Law (AB 26) in 1999, married Herrera and Hubbard. Mayor Newsom officiated over Migden’s wedding to her partner of 19 years, criminal defense attorney Cris Arguedas.

San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Duffy was also on hand to marry couples over the weekend and has since married over 100. “I’ve been trying to jog over whenever I can,” he said in an interview with the Gay & Lesbian Times last week. Duffy said he has been taking the couples he marries into private courthouse chambers away from the throng of couples being married in every alcove of the rotunda, to provide them a more intimate, peaceful setting. “I like to joke it’s like the American Express slogan – membership has its privileges.”

Herrera never thought marriage would be an option during the course of her and Hubbard’s relationship. “Never, never, never,” she said. The couple had talked about doing a civil union ceremony, however, and Herrera is registered as Hubbard’s domestic partner with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department where Hubbard is a deputy sheriff. “We’ve got all of the paperwork in order and all of this legal stuff – houses, a business, power of attorney because we have kids – but how amazing to actually be able to have a piece of paper that says we’re legally married.”

“I hope that what happened in that line, what the public saw, was these deeply committed people,” Kish said. “… There wasn’t a Britney Spears couple in that line waiting to be married.”

All the couples interviewed said that they were prepared to fight to keep their licenses if necessary, including traveling up to San Francisco to testify in court or publicly protesting.

“We’re going to be a part of this as much as we can, because we want future generations to have the rights that they deserve,” Lopez-Sager said. “It doesn’t change our commitment if it does get revoked. It wasn’t about the license it was about getting awareness out there. It’s just another step towards equality in this country. It changes nothing about the relationship I have with my husband. ”

“If it’s revoked, I’m sure eventually this country will come around, and it will be valid when they do,” said Flanigan.

Herrera and Hubbard also remain optimistic. A man they waited in line with at City Hall remarked that all of the GLBT couples present were “going to see the wizard”, Herrera said. Similar to the characters in The Wizard of Oz who were granted the thing they wanted most by the wizard at the end – and found out it was something that they already had inside – the man observed that the licenses they sought were merely a legal reflection of the commitments the couples had already made to each other.

“We got a piece of paper, like the tin man got a piece of paper saying he had a heart,” Herrera said. “So they can’t take anything from us because we already had it before we got there, but it would be so sad if they took it away because the mayor is absolutely correct – it is a total civil rights issue. It is not a moral issue at all.”

Many of the couples have also been following the news closely, as both opponents and supporters from all areas of the country focus on the decisions that will be made by the state of California over the next several months. Though Newsom has interpreted the California constitution to read that the “sanctity of marriage” is a right for all couples regardless of gender, the murky legal interpretations of Prop. 22 as well as other legislative loopholes in the state of California mean that marriage for gays and lesbians will continue to be an uphill battle, ultimately decided by the courts.

“We cannot fathom where that logic comes from when somebody like Britney Spears, who got drunk and wanted to do something fun, went and got married for 55 hours, and nobody has said one word about that ruining the sanctity of marriage,” Herrera said. “But here we are, 18 years, taxpaying, working, owning a business together, raising four kids, putting them through public school – how is that ruining the sanctity of marriage? It’s honoring the institution of marriage. It’s showing that we want to be a part of the government statistics that show how normal and typical we are.”

Duffy, who holds Harvey Milk’s seat in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, sees a historical connection to the actions of the openly gay Milk, who was assassinated in November 1978, and to the GLBT civil rights movement during that time. “Since Mayor Newsom made the call for gay and lesbian marriages, I have felt the presence and spirit of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone so strongly in [City Hall] and the sense of pride that they would feel. This achievement is more than Mayor Newsom: It’s Harvey Milk, it’s Roberta Achtenberg, Tom Ammiano, Chris Kehoe … this is an achievement that is built upon a foundation of advocacy that our elected leaders have fought for for over 25 years.”

Meanwhile, in San Diego, a supervisor at the San Diego Recorder/Clerk Main Office said they have only received one call from a GLBT couple inquiring about obtaining a marriage license locally since the events in San Francisco began.

And when asked about his response to Newsom’s issuing of marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples, Mayor Murphy responded: “I oppose violating state law.”

Herrera and Hubbard are undeterred. After returning from San Francisco last week, Hubbard brought her marriage license to the Sheriff’s Department benefits office to demand the “family” rate for health benefits, which is granted to married couples but not to those registered as domestic partners.

“Sarah has said that I am not allowed to use the word ‘partner’ anymore because that’s too businesslike,” Herrera said. “She said we’re officially married, so you have to say spouse.”

What about honeymoons? Herrera and Hubbard have already taken their honeymoon, stopping off at Disneyland on the drive home from San Francisco. Kish and Gutierrez are leaving for Paris next month, and Flanigan and Kelly have been planning a trip to Cancun next year, which will now double as their honeymoon. The Lopez-Sagers will hold a formal wedding later this year, then take a two-week cruise to Hawaii.