Invasion Of The Newlyweds
Posted on June 27, 2008
Filed Under Gay News Blog
Ride a cable car. Visit Alcatraz. Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. Get hitched?
Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same-sex weddings, but California is the first to allow nonresidents to marry - and 87 same-sex couples from other states and countries have already filed marriage licenses during their trips to San Francisco.
The number of non-Californians getting married in the city is expected to spike today as tourists arrive in advance of this weekend’s gay pride events. As of Thursday afternoon, 206 same-sex couples had appointments to get marriage licenses at City Hall today, making it the busiest day so far.
Already, the same-sex pairs have come from all corners of the United States, including liberal places like Seattle and New York City and conservative bastions such as South Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas.
They’ve come from other countries, too: England, France, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong. And instead of running off to Vegas to tie the knot, one couple from there came to San Francisco to do just that.
On Monday, wedding operations at City Hall will return to normal, rather than filling the North Light Court as they do now. The city will stop taking evening appointments and will go back to marrying couples only during business hours.
Jo Wilson, 70, and Carol Bennett, 57, were watching TV in their home in Austin, Texas, when they heard the California Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriage.
“I said, ‘Whoa, they did it! They did it! They really did it!’ ” Wilson said. “Everything’s been going against us for so long.”
The women, who have been together for 31 years, married on June 18 in front of the City Hall bust of slain Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the country’s first openly gay politicians. Each woman wore a crown of purple and white orchids.
“It’s San Francisco,” Bennett said. “You have to wear flowers in your hair.”
A closer look at licenses
The Chronicle analyzed information from all public marriage licenses filed with the Assessor-Recorder’s Office in San Francisco between June 17 and 25.
Now that licenses have no gender designation, it can be difficult to determine whether couples are heterosexual or homosexual. But looking at their names, The Chronicle estimated that 751 of the 1,004 licenses filed during that period were by same-sex couples and that 87 of those live outside California.
In addition, 80 couples have filed confidential licenses, meaning they are not public records. Nine of those were from outside the state, though the clerk’s office didn’t say how many of the couples were gay or lesbian.
The number of non-Californians getting married in S.F. is expected to spike before Pride events.
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