The couple plans to acquire their marriage license on Tuesday, but will hold off on their wedding ceremony until September.

“Tomorrow is the big day when we get our license at long last,” Takei said in an interview with The Early Show. As for the wedding itself, Takei said he and Altman want to “give ourselves some months to go through the delicious anguish of planning for it.”

George Takei, famously known for his role as ‘Mr. Sulu’ on Star Trek, has been with Altman for 21 years. In an interview with The Early Show on Monday, Altman said he proposed to Takei in an impromptu moment when news broke that the California Supreme Court had overturned the ban on same-sex marriage. “George was watching TV and the news flash came on and I dropped to my knees and I said ‘George, will you marry me?’”

Takei’s immediate response was not a “yes,” but rather, “Darn it, you beat me to it!”

Asked why it is important for them to have their relationship recognized as a legal marriage, Takei said, “Because it is a marriage. You know, they can find other names for it, but separate but equal just doesn’t cut it.”

“I don’t want to be domestically partnered to George Takei, I want to be married to George Takei,” Altman said. “And beginning today in California, I can legally marry George.Takei. I’m the happiest guy in California today because I get to marry George.”

“Well, I’m the second happiest man,” Takei said. “It’s about love, you know. But it’s the climate we’re going into that makes it political. But for us, it’s love… and we get to make it a marriage.”

In the couple’s official announcement of their wedding plans on Takei’s web site last month, the Star Trek star said that his heritage as a Japanese American has made him “keenly mindful of the subtle and not so subtle discrimination that the law can impose. During World War II, I grew up imprisoned behind the barbed wire fences of U.S. internment camps.”

“Now, with the passage of time, we look back and see it as a shameful chapter of American history,” Takei said of that time period. “With time, I know the opposition to same sex marriage, too, will be seen as an antique and discreditable part of our history.”

Over the years, Pyllis Lyon and Del Martin have become the unofficial ‘poster couple’ of the gay marriage equality movement. Their gentle appearance and tough spirits, along with their infinite love for each other, have earned them the respect and admiration of the LGBT community worldwide. In 2003, filmmaker Joan E. Biren documented their extraordinary lives in the film No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

Lyon and Martin met in Seattle in 1950 while working together for the same magazine. Two years later, they began a relationship and moved to San Francisco shortly afterward. Together for over 50 years,
Lyon and Martin were part of a group of women who founded the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955.

Originally a social club for lesbians in San Francisco, the organization went on to become the first nationally recognized lesbian advocacy group in the United States. The organization eventually grew to have chapters in over a dozen cities across the country, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Denver and Philadelphia. Lyon and Martin remained leaders of the Daughters of Bilitis until the late 1960s.

Lyon and Martin were among the thousands of gay and lesbian couples who were wed by the City of San Francisco in 2004 when Mayor Gavin Newsome protested against the ban on same-sex marriage by issuing licenses to same-sex couples. Those licenses were later revoked when the California Supreme Court declared the marriages had violated state law. The couple was devastated by the indignity of having their legal union dissolved.

“Del is 83 years old and I am 79,” Lyon said at the time. “After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.”

Lyon and Martin joined several dozen other gay and lesbian couples in a mass lawsuit against the ban on same-sex marriage in California. After years of struggle to find legal recognition for their relationship of half a century, the California Supreme Court finally ruled last month that the ban on same-sex marriage violated the state’s constitution. Shortly after the news broke, Lyon and Martin were contacted by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome and asked if they would be willing to once again stand together with him and exchange their vows. They agreed, hoping this time their marriage will not be taken away from them.

The sweet, grandmotherly couple may not technically be the first to marry on Tuesday, as other clerk’s offices in California may have already begun to issue licenses to same-sex couples before their special ceremony concludes. Regardless, Lyon and Martin’s lifelong love will still stand on this day as a proud testimony to why gay and lesbian couples have fought so long and so hard for marriage equality in California, and across the country.

Whether or not Lyon and Martin will have to suffer the sadness of having their marriages invalidated yet again may come down to a voter’s initiative proposed by anti-gay marriage activists for the November ballot. Gay marriage opponents want voters to pass a constitutional amendment to restrict legal marriage to between “a man and a woman” only, overturning the California Supreme Court’s ruling to allow legal marriage between same-sex couples.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

One of my gay boyfriends – an actual boyfriend that turned gay later – remarked sardonically that I must not have been breastfed. Actually, I think I was, but I hardly think that is related. My Mother has tiny breasts. She has sarcastically noted several times that I not only had my share of breasts – I had hers too. No, much to Freud’s probable dismay – my breast fetish has nothing to do with dear Mom. On the other hand, I think my gay male’s continuous commentary on my breast fetish had everything to do with his mother. I never met a man more obsessed with breasts – though gay men do seem to have an odd fascination with them… but that is another column.

Yes, on the surface it may appear I’m just some sort of lecherous dyke with a hard-on for bouncy chests. I think, however, that my somewhat annoying habit of speaking to a grrl’s chest goes deeper than that.

You see, I love women. Okay, you say, that’s obvious – you’re a dyke, of COURSE you love women. Well, yes, but let me take that a bit farther.

I love women. Not just those glorious curves that draw my eyes like magnets. I love everything about women. How they smell, how they walk, the pitches of their voices. I revel in the way a woman thinks, how she reacts, how she views the world around her in an indefinable female way. Even the most butch among us – is female in an indefinable but powerful way.

There are women in the world who are lesbians, I believe, primarily because they don’t want men. There are also women who can love both women and men in equal measure – and enjoy them both in every way. Not me. I am firmly, in every aspect, a hardcore and permanent dyke. Though I’ve been with men in the distant past – I always just thought they were missing something – as well as having a few things extra I wasn’t interested in. They were too hard, too scratchy, smelled wrong and were, well, men.

The first time I kissed a girl – I instantly let out a huge sigh of relief. Finally, I knew where I belonged! The sweet, soft mouth, the smooth curves, the feeling of female flesh against female flesh – it was so incredibly right.

We’ve all heard it before – or said it. This is nothing new, and doesn’t explain my inability to register a woman’s face before staring at her chest. Right? I’m not so sure about that. To me, the one feature that defines, quite distinctly, a woman, is those beautiful curves perched so perfectly quite a few inches below her face. Yes, we have other equipment that is quite distinctive from the male form – but most of the time those are not publicly displayed, too bad really.

Breasts are beautiful not just because of how they look – but because of what they represent. They are a glorious and prominent example of our femaleness. They represent our sexuality – and our ability to bring forth life. Breasts are both lust-provoking and comforting. Everything about them screams of femininity and the pure female essence that so entrances me. Butch, femme, andro – we’re all women – and no matter how small, large or bound they are, we’ve all got them. They are a representation of the deeper, spiritual connection we feel for each other. There is no experience in the world as when like meets like – and connects in mind, body, spirit or all of them together. Breasts are a beautiful, outward definition of the undeniable woman we all have beneath our skin.

I’m not saying that I won’t find a woman any less female (or attractive) if she doesn’t have breasts, either by choice or through medical circumstances. I’ll stare at their chest just as much. The absence of physical breasts does not remove the spiritual knowledge of them.

So, when I catch myself staring at a woman’s breasts, I am not just appreciating their loveliness. Though I love a woman with a gorgeous chest – I don’t restrict my wandering eyes to just those I find attractive. Femme or butch, straight or dyke, I talk to the breasts of women of all types, sizes and persuasions. I don’t stare at a woman’s breasts because I lust after them – I stare at them because I love them. I love those lovely curves in the same way I love the essence of a woman’s heart, spirit and mind. They are simply the most perfect things I’ve ever seen – every time I see them.

© 2005 Laura Vess, All Rights Reserved

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