Same-sex couples - some in shorts and jeans, some in their work clothes - rushed to be wed in California on Friday after a court abruptly ended the state's five-year ban on gay marriage in the wake of landmark rulings at the US Supreme Court.
On a balcony overlooking the grand staircase at San Francisco City Hall, an ornate space that has long been a magnet for weddings, the couple whose case sparked this week's Supreme Court decision exchanged vows. The ceremony was officiated by state Attorney General Kamala Harris, and the ring bearer was the couple's 18-year-old son.
"This is the first day of the rest of our lives together, said Kristin Perry, who with her fiancée, Sandy Stier, filed the lawsuit against Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California in 2008. Stier turned to the horde of reporters and well-wishers crowding the room, smiled and said: "Thank you so much for coming to our wedding." At the city clerk's office, other couples waited for their marriage licenses. Two men - one in jeans and the other wearing a pair of shorts - exchanged vows after Stier and Perry. Four hundred miles to the south, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, a second couple who were plaintiffs in the case, wed at City Hall in Los Angeles.
"You are just as in love today as you were when you met 12 years ago," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who conducted the ceremony, told the two men, who wore suits with boutonnieres. The California marriages capped a historic week for gay rights in the United States. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued two key rulings - one that extended federal benefits to married gay couples and another that allowed a federal court's order striking down the California marriage ban to stand. California briefly allowed gay marriages in 2008, before the ballot initiative was enacted. It now becomes the 13th state, and the largest, to allow same-sex marriage - just in time, advocates point out, for Gay Pride weekend.
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