On February 12, 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the city to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. What followed became known as the Winter of Love.
At City Hall
The Bay Area Reporter wrote that by press time more than 2,600 couples had married. On Tuesday, February 17, a court hearing on a request to halt the weddings was put off until that Friday. The crowd outside cheered, 25 more couples were let in, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang inspirational songs for the couples still waiting outside.
It was the same building where the chorus first sang in 1978, now full of weddings. The California Supreme Court later voided those marriages, and it would be years before marriage equality came to stay.
From the archives: this post retells reporting by the Bay Area Reporter. The original articles survive only in newspaper archives, so we have told the story here in our own words. Details attributed to those outlets are their reporting; see the sources below.
Sources
- Bay Area Reporter, “Same-sex marriage coverage”, February 19, 2004. ebar.com
