Molly McKay (right) and Davina Kotulski (second from right) share a kiss as San Francisco Sheriffs deputies escort them away after denied marriage inside the office of San Francisco's county clerk.
SAN FRANCISCO, USA - For the past 10 years, same-sex marriage activists have shown up in the small City Hall office usually with news cameras in tow - to request a marriage license. Karen Hong Yee, who has been stationed at the counter most years, would explain that California state law forbids such marriages and turn them away.
On Monday, Yee's annual visitors broke from ritual. In a coordinated act of civil disobedience, nine couples requested a license and then sat on the floor. They left only after they were cuffed in plastic ties by sheriff's deputies and escorted out of the building.
In San Francisco and at least 25 other cities nationwide, same-sex marriage advocates requested marriage licenses Monday to highlight the fact that, despite recent momentum in California courtrooms, "the window at the clerk's office still says, 'No gays allowed,' " said Molly McKay, media director of Marriage Equality USA.- McKay and her partner, Davina Kotulski, have spent the past 10 Valentine's Days at the clerk's office, and Kotulski said it was downright depressing to spend another one there.
- "A decade is a ridiculous amount of time to be working on full equality," Kotulski said. "We're California. This still isn't law? ... I'm hoping we don't have to come back next year."
Most likely, however, the issue will still be up in the air next Valentine's Day. A federal judge struck down California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages in August, but the matter is now before an appeals court. After that court rules, everyone expects that the losing side will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.- After a news conference in the North Light Court, where city supervisors and clergy spoke about love and civil rights, and fighting until justice prevails, McKay and Kotulski joined a procession to the clerk's office around the corner.
As they walked, the couples sang Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "What the World Needs Now is Love."A plainclothes sheriff's deputy recorded the couples as they stood in line and continued to sing. Sheriff's Sgt. E. Erdmann, who declined to give his full first name, stood off to the side and watched with a smile.
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