(Bean’s away this week, enjoying the tropical sunshine and the palm trees of London, Canada, so I’m subbing for her – Amp.)
February 12
1855: (Birthday) Fannie Williams, co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women born in Brockport, NY. The NACW still exists today.
1909: (A First) The first meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is held; members include Mary Church Terrell, Jane Addams, and Ida B. Wells Barnett, Joesphine Ruffin, and Inez Millholland Boissevain.
1992: Following a seven-year court battle, Sharon Kowalski is finally brought home by her life partner (and now legal guardian), Karen Thompson. Kowalski, who had been severely injured in an accident, was the subject of a custody suit between Thompson and Kowalski’s estranged father.
2004: (A first) City officials in San Francisco issued a license and performed a wedding ceremony for a lesbian couple. This appears to be the first legal same-sex wedding in the United States. The couple, Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, are longtime lesbian-rights activists, who have been together for over half a century.
edited by bean to add previously missing information and to make one correction..
Three cheers for Phyllis and Del! –And gosh. You know what? My own heterosexual marriage is still perfectly safe! Wow!
Here’s what I wrote in my blog about this last highlight:
Lyon & Martin also established a health clinic here for poor women.
Yea my city!!
You know, I’ve never been a huge fan of (new SF mayor) Gavin Newsom, and, had I been able to vote in the election, I probably would have voted for Matt Gonzalez (the Green Party candidate), but I’ve got to hand it to Newsom . . . this rocks on so many levels.
I just can’t stop giggling at how cool it is that the MAYOR of San Francisco is engaging in what amounts to civil disobedience over this . . . California has already passed one of those smarmy laws declaring that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” but Newsom feels that his oath to uphold the constitution supercedes that. Good for him. He’s more than earned a second look from me.
Anyway, check out his press release and his letter to the County Clerk. I think the latter demonstrates a particularly skillful way to frame this discussion.
—JRC
While I voted for Gonzalez, I wasn’t too upset or worried when Newsom won. I’m very happy with this week’s events. My wife and I both almost wish we were a gay couple living in sin so we could join the fun. This has got to be the most beautiful civil disobedience on record.
enjoying the tropical sunshine and the palm trees of London, Canada
Sunshine? Palm trees? Why, you make it sound like a vacation or something. :p
Actually, it is quite nice here — right now it’s about 23 F (10 F with the wind chill). By tomorrow morning, it should be about 8 F (before factoring in the wind chill). There’s a few flurries out. And let me tell you, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I can’t stand the lack of cold and snow in Portland (and that little 3 day storm of semi-cold and a couple of inches of snow just doesn’t even come close to counting). I knit myself a new wool hat with ear warmers and fake fur, and I’m enjoying the hell out of walking around in the cold and snow. This is what February is supposed to feel like.
Plus, I can actually get all the jokes on Conan this week that will have 99% of Americans scratching their heads (except the ones who keep up with the daily controversies and goings-on in Canada — but how many people do that?). :p
What JRC and –k said. Here’s one married straight man who is thrilled that his gay and lesbian friends and neighbors are finally able to experience the joy of legal wedlock if they want it. (And if they don’t want it, they don’t have to have it. I’m in favor of that too.)
Except that this apparently isn’t the first. I saw a news story somewhere that a county clerk in Boulder, Colorado, issued half a dozen or so marriage certificates for gay couples in the 1970s. Some of them were challenged in court, but not all, and at least one of the couples still consider themselves married.
Also: a background news story in the San Francisco Chronicle reveals that it was attending GWB’s State of Confusion Address, which endorsed an anti-marriage amendment, that enraged Mayor Newsom so much that he went home and ordered his staff to look into ways of doing something to raise a protest flag.
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