The Marriage of True Minds: Gay and Lesbian Unions Now Legal in California

My favorite portrait
Originally uploaded by keribeth

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Congratulations to our friends and family in California who can finally marry.

Here in our house we drank a toast at 5 pm, and read the reports online.

This story brought tears to my eyes,

Cheers filled San Francisco's City Hall shortly after 5 p.m. as longtime lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, partners for more than 50 years, began their second wedding - and their first legal union.

Lyon, 83, and Martin, 87, were the first couple married four years ago when Newsom told the county clerk's office to start offering marriage certificates to same-sex couples. Eventually more than 4,000 same-sex couples were married in San Francisco that year, but those unions were later nullified by the court. Today, the couple, and dozens of others, had their first chance to make their unions truly legal.

...(Mayor) Newsom waited until exactly 5:01 p.m. to begin the San Francisco ceremony, the only one in San Francisco tonight. The women were declared spouses for life at 5:07 p.m. in front of about 50 friends and family members. Martin came into the area in a wheelchair but stood for the ceremony.

The couple made their way out of the office and onto the balcony area where a cake - and large crowd- was waiting. Rose petals fluttered down from the ceiling as the crowd cheered and cameras flashed.

"This is an extraordinary moment in history and extraordinary moment in time" Newsom said to the crowd. "They are extraordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives and spent half a century fighting for justice and equality."

Our love and joy go with you all,

Sia

The photo of this beautiful couple is one I found on the Lesbian Weddings pool at Flickr.