The FACE of those who married in San Francisco
Numbers put face on a phenomenon Most who married are middle-aged, have college degrees
Chronicle Staff Writers: Suzanne Herel, Rona Marech, Ilene Lelchuk, Thursday, March 18, 2004
There were doctors, lawyers and -- yes -- even an Indian "tribal chairwoman."
The 4,037 same-sex couples who obtained marriage licenses in San Francisco hail from 46 states and eight other countries, are highly educated, range in age from 18 to 83 but generally are middle-aged, and represent hundreds of occupations.
That's the picture painted by demographic information released Wednesday by the San Francisco assessor-recorder's office that tracked the licenses issued between Feb. 12, when Mayor Gavin Newsom gave the go-ahead to same-sex
nuptials, and March 11, when the state Supreme Court ordered them stopped.
"It really did represent, in its final composition, people from everywhere,"
said Carole Migden, the lesbian chairwoman of the state Board of Equalization who got married at San Francisco City Hall to her longtime partner and officiated at more than 100 other same-sex weddings. She said she wasn't surprised to find that the majority of the couples were between the ages of 36 and 50, and that 68.8 percent held at least a college degree.
"Many of the couples were parents. Many of the couples were older. Who's apt to say, 'Let's throw everything down and go get married?' -- perhaps people with a little more financial ability," Migden said.
"Amazing," said Thom Lynch, executive director of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center. "I think it talks about how deeply this reaches people. ... That just shows the whole cliche that we are everywhere. Well, we really are."
Couples came to San Francisco to marry for political reasons and also because
of the iconic meaning the city has, he said. Indeed, of the 17 foreign couples,
some came from Canada and the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage is legal.
"For many, many people, this is the heart of the gay and lesbian movement," Lynch said. "Even throughout the world. Even in progressive countries."
That was the case for people like John Humber, 33, who flew from Nashville to marry Michael McBlane, 27.
"We got really, really excited when we started reading stories of people getting married there, especially people who have been together so long," he said.
"We decided it was something special and something historical, and we wanted
to get involved. Plus, it's a beautiful city."
Ellen Pontac, 62, who married her partner of 30 years in February, said the lengths people went reflects the depth of feeling about the right of same- sex couples to marry.
"It just shows how much people want to get married. It was the only place in
the United States at the time where someone could get married," Pontac said.
Opponents of the same-sex unions, however, point to opinion polls and the passage of a state ballot measure that defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman as evidence that the majority of Californians feel differently
and believe that what took place in San Francisco was wrong.
"When you compare the little over 4,000 couples that sought to obtain a marriage license, that winds up being .000087 percent of 4.6 million people of California who voted in favor of preserving the institution of marriage," said
Robert Tyler, head of the California office of the Alliance Defense Fund, which asked the state Supreme Court to stop the marriages.
Of the couples who obtained marriage licenses, 91.4 percent live in California. Significant numbers also traveled from Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New York and Florida.
The bulk of the couples came from San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, but many also were from Sacramento, San Jose, Alameda, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz.
A large number were from San Diego and Los Angeles and some Southern California Republican enclaves like Anaheim in Orange County.
They came from Kalamazoo, Mich., from the marriage capitals of Las Vegas and
Reno, from Paris, France, and Paris, Tenn.
The couples work as attorneys, artists, teachers, doctors and in other traditional careers. But there were also the tribal chairwoman from Ukiah, the airline pilot from Michigan, the self-defined cowboy from California and a
strawberry breeder from Florida.
More women than men tied the knot. Said Lynch, "I think that gays and lesbians are not exactly the same people. Relationships and the ways they're formed are different."
Ethnicity was not part of the demographic data released by the city, but many
people involved in the 29 days of same-sex weddings agreed that the majority
of the newlyweds were white, some were Latino and a few were African American
or Asian American.
Bill Jones, who officiated at 457 same-sex marriages, recalled a lesbian couple from Germany, several deaf couples, two cops from New York and a couple of farmboys from Nebraska.
Most of the couples said they had been together for between two and 37 years,
according to Jones.
Benjamin Lopez, legislative director and lobbyist for the Traditional Values
Coalition, which opposes same-sex marriage, said he wasn't surprised by the demographic profile of newlyweds or the great distances they came.
"The fact that gay couples from 46 other states came to California to marry plays into the strategy and the plans of Gavin Newsom," Lopez said. "By showing flagrant disrespect for the law he said, 'Come here. We will marry you if
your state will not. Then you can go to courts in your home states and challenge
the validity of your licenses at home."
Maryann Martindale, who flew to San Francisco from Salt Lake City to marry her partner of three years, said she didn't know what to expect when she returned home. But she said the response has been overwhelming supportive. That's been
true even at her job at a time management company -- started by a descendent
of the founder of the conservative Mormon church.
"It's encouraged great dialogue," Martindale said. "That surprised me. I didn't think anyone would be rude. I just thought I'd be ignored."
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