Gay and lesbian couples begin tying the knot in Massachusetts (12458)

Across Massachusetts on Monday, gay and lesbian couples emerged from town halls and city clerks' offices with their marriage paperwork in hand and were treated to bouquets of roses and slices of wedding cake as hundreds of well-wishers cheered them on.

Three years after the Boston City Hall rejection that launched a social revolution, Julie and Hillary Goodridge retraced their steps to complete their journey to the altar. Clenching the hand of their 8-year-old daughter as they passed through a media throng, the lead plaintiffs in the landmark Massachusetts lawsuit arrived yet again at Boston City Hall to help usher in a new era for gay citizens. "This isn't changing marriage. This is just opening the door," said Hillary Goodridge, 48, after applying for the marriage license that has eluded them for years.

The Goodridges and the six other plaintiff couples in Massachusetts's landmark gay marriage case finally had the chance to exercise their hard-won legal rights Monday, after a court-imposed 180-day waiting period that saw the birth of a new culture war in America.

The events were even more significant in that they come exactly 50 years to the day that the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, which determined that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and essentially violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The "separate and unequal" argument has been a rallying point for supporters of same-sex marriage rights who maintain that civil unions or domestic partnerships do not offer the same protections that are afforded straight married couples. Many of the tactics employed by opponents of marriage equality were also used in earlier civil rights struggles. Judges have been demonized for standing up for equality. Far-right Christian conservatives are still trying to implement a Federal Marriage Amendment that would put a ban on gay marriage in the U.S. Constitution. They are attempting to justify their bigotry with the excuse that it's "God's law"--just as they did when trying to stop interracial marriages.

The civil rights comparisons have deeply divided the gay and straight African-Americans. On Monday the gay rights group National Black Justice Coalition blasted the conservative, antigay Traditional Values Coalition and some African-American pastors for holding a press conference to criticize the Massachusetts weddings.

"We cannot go back to the days of separate and unequal," said Jasmyne Cannick, NBJC board member. "It's ironic that on the day Americans are celebrating the landmark decision of Brown v. the Board of Education, gays and lesbians are still fighting for equal protection under the law. Civil marriage between gay and lesbian couples is very much a matter of concern to African-Americans. The Traditional Values Coalition will not be successful at using African-Americans to spread discrimination across the country."

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, added, "We must take heed of our civil rights history. We must fight any attempt to write discrimination into our Constitution and reject proposed state laws that make some Americans unequal. We must fight to ensure for all same-sex couples the legal protection of marriage, not just in Massachusetts, but everywhere."

President George W. Bush, who was traveling to Topeka, Kan., on Monday to commemorate Brown, issued a statement aboard Air Force One, continuing his call to Congress to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages by saying, "The need for that amendment is still urgent, and I renew that call today." He also said that "the institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges." Yet in his speech, delivered in Topeka, he said, "Fifty years ago today, nine judges announced that they had looked at the Constitution and saw no justification for the segregation and humiliation of an entire race.... The legal challenges to school segregation began more than 100 years before the Supreme Court heard the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1849, African-American parents brought suit against Boston's divided schools. Here in Kansas, segregation was challenged in several cases between 1881 and 1949. These early efforts did not bring victory; yet they inspired words and warnings that have spoken across the years. As Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in his dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson: 'In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant ruling class of citizens. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color.'"

Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said, "This president needs a high-school civics lesson. It's dishonest and irresponsible to attack a court for doing its job. The court's job is to make sure that everyone's constitutional rights are protected, and that's exactly what happened in Massachusetts. President Bush is putting himself in the company of segregationists who made the same attacks on judges who upheld the constitutional rights of African-American people exactly 50 years ago today, after Brown v. Board of Education. These are different issues and a different generation, but the same old smear tactic. It didn't work to circumvent our system of justice 50 years ago, and it won't work today."

Although he seems to have won the support of major gay rights groups, John Kerry, the presumed Democratic Party nominee for president, is not in favor of marriage for same-sex couples. According to The Washington Post, Kerry showed discomfort about the issue this weekend when asked by a reporter what he "would say on a personal level to same-sex couples married in his state." Kerry replied: "It's not my job to start parceling advice on something personal like that. I personally believe marriage is between a man and a woman and in extending our rights under the Constitution in a nondiscriminatory manner." According to the paper, Kerry was asked if he would offer his congratulations to the newly married. He replied: "I obviously wish everyone happiness. I want everyone to feel fulfilled and happy in their lives. The way to do that is by respecting every citizen's rights under the Constitution."

Massachusetts joins the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada's three most populous provinces as the only places in the world where gays can marry. The state was thrust into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage when its supreme judicial court ruled 4-3 in November that gay and lesbian couples have a right under the state constitution to wed. In the days leading to Monday's deadline for same-sex weddings to begin, opponents looked to the federal courts for help in overturning the ruling. On Friday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

The supreme judicial court's ruling also galvanized opponents of gay marriage in Massachusetts, prompting lawmakers in this heavily Democratic, Roman Catholic state to adopt a state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage but legalize Vermont-style civil unions. The earliest it could wind up on the ballot is 2006--possibly casting a shadow on the legality of gay marriages taking place in the intervening years.

Frank Rotondo, a 62-year-old retired airline customer service agent, was holding a place for his partner of 35 years, Peter Lee, 57, a flight attendant who was flying in later Monday and planned to meet him so they could seek their marriage license. "It feels great. It's not about sexuality or preference; it's really about equality," Rotondo said. They first met while working for the former TWA.

Rotondo said people will see that gay marriage isn't the end of the world. "It'll take time. It's like anything new," he said. "People may be afraid of it, but family and friends are very supportive." Rotondo said he and Lee have planned a private ceremony for June and will probably a big reception on New Year's Eve, the anniversary of the day they met.

In Cambridge, couples such as Tanya McCloskey, 52, and Marcia Kadish, 56, of Malden moved at a breakneck pace to fill out paperwork, get a waiver on the three-day waiting period, then return to City Hall, where they obtained their marriage license and exchanged vows. At 9:15 a.m., city clerk Margaret Drury told the couple, "I now pronounce you married under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

Theirs was among the first--if not the first--same-sex weddings anticipated to take place throughout the state. "It was really important to us to just be married," McCloskey said. "We want to be married as soon as we possibly can. Part of it is, we don't know what the legislature is going to do."

About 15 protesters, most from the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, stood near Cambridge City Hall on Sunday night carrying signs emblazoned with antigay slogans. The group, led by notoriously homophobic preacher Fred Phelps, travels around the country protesting homosexuality. But Ray McNulty, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Family Institute, one of the leading organizers of opposition to same-sex marriage, criticized some of the protesters, saying there was no need for hateful speech. "What's going on down there is legal, and as far as I'm concerned, give those people their happiness for the day," McNulty said.

The gay rights group Human Rights Campaign launched a special edition home page that replaced its normal Web site with a Web streaming of the event and pictures of happy couples who were married. There was also a spot for well-wishers to add their own notes. Bob, a gay man from Pennsylvania, wrote, "I want to congratulate you all so very much for realizing your dreams of a legal union and an affirmation of the love you all hold for each other. In a way I am so jealous that the Quakers still run Pennsylvania, but I hope that my 24th trip to Provincetown this fall will allow me to experience the same joy you feel today by marrying my partner, Bohdan, of 19 years. I am so happy for you all, a great future ahead, and thank you for your inspiration and example. "

Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said, "This morning at 12:01 I was honored to be present at the granting of the first civil marriage licenses for same-sex couples in Cambridge, Mass. I can report that despite what the voices of intolerance are saying, the sky will not fall today. No marriage will be threatened today, and no church or religious institution will be forced to do anything. The only thing that has happened and will continue to happen is that two people who love each other and want to take care of each other for life will now be subject to the equal protection of the law."

Out-of-state gay couples are likely to challenge Massachusetts's 1913 marriage statute, which bars nonresident couples from marrying in Massachusetts if the union would be illegal in their home state. Republican governor Mitt Romney, a gay-marriage opponent, has said that clerks who issue licenses to nonresidents may face legal prosecution.

Provincetown, the famously gay-friendly resort at the tip of Cape Cod, was the first community in the state to announce that it would defy Romney. Town officials made good on their threat by issuing the first application of the day to a couple from Anniston, Ala.: Chris McCary, 43, and his partner of six years, John Sullivan, 37. "I'm marrying the person I love," Sullivan said as he and McCary left Town Hall.

For Cheryl Andrews, chairwoman of the Provincetown board of selectmen, the day had a special significance. Andrews, a doctor, planned to marry her longtime partner, Jennifer Germack, in a private ceremony Thursday at Germack's father's Cape Cod nursing home. "It's really one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me," Andrews said. "I've been bursting into tears just about every other minute for the last two weeks."

Gay couples getting hitched also had some straight company inside Boston City Hall. Matt Ryan, 32, and girlfriend Brandi Tague, 31, also waited to apply for a marriage license. The Somerville couple said they wanted to show solidarity after seeing friends who couldn't marry because of their sexual orientation.

The thousands who gathered in Cambridge included gay couples, their friends and families, and the merely curious. Dan Coleron, a 27-year-old musician from Somerville, is heterosexual and didn't know anyone in the crowd, but he wanted to take part in the experience. "I think that this is a historical point in this country's evolution, and that when the people come out through the front doors, it must make them feel wanted by the community," he said. "To feel accepted is important for people."