Right Here, Right Now

Lynn Kendall was volunteering today in the San Francisco Recorder's Office, helping people get their marriage license applications in order. I met her for lunch outside City Hall, at the corner of Grove and Van Ness.

I've never seen anything quite like it: a line of people snaking down the steps of the main entrance to City Hall, turning on Grove Street, and looping up Franklin Street, behind the building. Everyone was happy, smiling, waiting in the slow-moving line for their chance to get hitched. Cars drove past on Van Ness, honking horns: "Bee-bee-bee-BEEEEEEEP!" – the Morse code for V-for-victory.

Lynn told me that inside City Hall the line of marriage license applicants snaked back and forth through the central hall like the line for an E-ticket ride at Disneyland. Something on the order of a hundred volunteers had turned up to help, and they were all needed. People came dressed in jeans and T-shirts, or in matching bridal gowns, matching tuxedos, or sweatsuits. People had driven in from all over the west. People had flown in from the East Coast.

After lunch, as I walked Lynn back to City Hall, a mariachi band was playing on the steps of the building. The line had gotten shorter, extending only to the corner of Grove and Van Ness. The cars were still honking joyously as they passed. Parked in the Civic Center plaza were trucks for local television stations.

"It really feels like the Berlin Wall coming down," Lynn told me. The comparison had come to my own mind also.

Here (via boing boing) is another eyewitness account, of City Hall on Valentine's Day, by Seth Schoen:

We walked around the side of the line and saw hundreds of same-sex couples in all states of dress (punk to tuxedo to family heirloom dress to just-off-the-street-in-work-attire). One couple wore yarmulkes and carried a siddur; another couple looked like ordained ministers, but I didn't know for sure of which Christian denomination. (It must be one willing to ordain gay women.) At the back of City Hall, the line was making its way through the door past a group of about half a dozen well-wishers with big pink signs. They looked like high school students. One of them was carrying an American flag with gay rights symbols in place of the stars. (Oddly enough, San Francisco regular Frank Chu was demonstrating too, with his usual sign that had nothing to do with same-sex marriage – instead about galaxies, a rocket society, and impeaching former U.S. presidents. I was pretty sure he was just trying to get on TV with his message. You see him frequently in the Financial District.)

Here and here are San Francisco Chronicle stories on the political background and legal implications of Gavin Newsom's stunning decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex applicants. (via Janet Lafler)

Addendum: Here is RJ's account of helping out at City Hall.

Addendum #2: And here is Lynn Kendall's:

The wedding parties had been standing in line for hours – two to four hours once they got inside the building, plus many hours in line outside. The air in City Hall was warm and humid, chilly and wet outside. Many had children with them – tiny babies in Snuglis, toddlers in strollers, teenagers playing games on cell phones. Almost everyone was burdened with umbrellas, backpacks, or blankets, and some had brought clothes to change into.

Yet what struck me most was the joy in that endless line. Every person I helped thanked me. Several offered warm hugs. People whose papers had already been validated still thanked me for coming out to help. Whenever volunteers entered or left the building, the people in line cheered and thanked them.