Same-sex couples settle into marriage
But concerns grow as political climate shifts
When the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the United States on June 26, 2015, husbands Clayton and Michael PriceBrown were congratulated by an unexpected source: Their 92-year-old El Sobrante neighbor, Carmen Watson.
“We’ve been surprised by who some of our biggest supporters have been,” said Michael, 53, a Berkeley Realtor. “But to get that support and acknowledgment two years ago from her at 92 was something else. It felt like anything was possible.”
Longtime activists Stuart Gaffney and his husband, John Lewis, were at the victory celebration in the Castro that June day. They had been chasing marriage for years: Gaffney, 54 and Lewis, 58, were one of the first 10 couples married in San Francisco during the Winter of Love on Feb. 12, 2004, and again on June 17, 2008, the first full day of marriage equality in California. They were plaintiffs in the 2008 lawsuit that overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
“I remember standing on a stage with Stuart in the Castro two years ago and feeling like, ‘Look at what we were able to accomplish as a community,’ ” Lewis said. “It was
a moment that felt safe. But I think we knew the struggle continued.”
In the two years since the Obergefell vs. Hodges decision, these and other Bay Area same-sex couples have in many ways settled into lives as ordinary as those of their heterosexual counterparts. They’re grappling with home ownership in the competitive Bay Area market, planning their monthly budgets and discussing starting families.
With San Francisco’s history as an LGBT mecca and site of important victories in the marriage equality movement, it’s not surprising that the numbers reflect that the Bay Area is a hub for married same-sex couples. A September 2016 report by the Treasury Department showed that, based on tax filings, San Francisco had the highest rate of gay male marriages in the United States at 3.2 percent, while Oakland had the highest rate of lesbian marriages at 2.1 percent, according to the New York Times. Nationally, Gallup reported in 2016 that nearly 1 million adults were in same-sex marriages, a 33 percent surge over the previous year when same-sex marriage was available only in 37 states and the District of Columbia. A more recent Gallup report found that 10.2 percent of LGBT adults in the United States are now married to their same-sex partners, up from 9.6 percent in 2016.
But now, as the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision approaches, their feelings of triumph are tinged with uncertainty. The election of President Trump has changed the political and social landscape, raising concerns about the status of LGBT rights and marriage equality. Two years in, a gay wedding can still feel like a form of activism in itself.
“Having a family is maybe the most political thing I’ve done in my life,” said Kevin Wisney-Leonard, 49, who lives in Piedmont with his husband John Leonard, 54, and their 12-year-old daughter, Ayden. “It’s not that way for straight couples.”
“It was like flipping a light switch after the election,” said Sam Garanzini, the co-founder of the Gay Couples Institute in San Francisco. “All the sessions we experienced that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, everyone was distraught. It was like a national tragedy had happened, and like in any tragedy, couples were dealing with it together.” Concerns ranged from emboldening prejudice among individuals to an antiLGBT agenda.
Family law specialist Cheryl Sena said she received roughly a dozen phone calls from couples after the election inquiring about whether they needed to pursue additional legal protections for their relationship.
Although pages related to LGBT rights disappeared from the White House website following the inauguration, and Trump has not acknowledged Gay Pride month as President Obama did during his two terms, his administration also hasn’t announced any intentions to challenge marriage equality. In his first interview with “60 Minutes” following the election, Trump told Lesley Stahl he was “fine” with legalized same-sex marriage. (Vice President Mike Pence has been a known opponent of legal same-sex marriage.)
But nationally, there are attempts to undermine LGBT protections at the legislative level. In March, the Human Rights Campaign reported that it was tracking 100 antiLGBT bills in 29 states, including several “religious freedom” bills that allow for discrimination against LGBT people in adoptions and other services in Alabama, Texas and South Dakota. High courts in Washington state and Colorado have both heard cases involving vendors refusing to provide services for same-sex weddings, citing their religious beliefs.
“It’s not something you see people of the heterosexual community having to face,” Sena said. “For gay people, there’s general concern they’re never outside some scrutiny or far from having their rights taken away from them.”
Even with these potential dark clouds on the horizon, married life continues for same-sex couples. Many are also considering how they can best take action in ways big and small.
San Franciscans Ingrid Hu Dahl and Courtney Howard, who got married in 2014 in Berkeley, are starting to talk about whether or not to become parents.
“Whether we have kids or not, I knew she was that person I wanted to have a family with,” said Howard, 33, head of global platform operations team at Apple. “We purchased a home together, and are planning for our future.”
Howard and Hu Dahl, 37, the director of design education at Capital One, are also in the beginning stages of planning a personal foundation to give to organizations that fight for gender equality, LGBT rights, and “whatever those issues are in the future,” Howard said.
“In my vows I recognized the inherent danger (we’re in) as out queer lesbians,” Hu Dahl said. “As I saw Trump become our president, I wondered about protecting my wife. Could our rights be revoked?” An attack on a lesbian couple on the New York subway in May was a vivid reminder for Hu Dahl of those concerns.
San Francisco husbands Christopher Shields, 43 and Shad St. Louis, 49, say that although they are concerned about possible erosion in protections for LGBT people, the questions they ask themselves as a couple are mainly about things like who is going to cook that night and adding pets to the family. “The same stuff everyone else always took for granted,” Shields said.
For others, activism is woven into their daily lives.
Sunshine Mattison and Crystal Shanks were married in 2014, and after almost three years, Shanks says that it does feel like “a different identity, from single to married.” Part of marriage is creating little rituals: “We dance in the kitchen every morning over tea,” Mattison said.
Although both women say they have been conscious of increased hostility against LGBT people via the news and social media in other parts of the state and country, they say they’ve mostly felt protected in what they call the “Bay Area bubble” of LGBT inclusiveness.
Wisney-Leonard and Leonard say that bubble extends to family life as well. Their daughter Ayden is one of several children of same-sex parents in her class in Piedmont: There’s even another family with two dads named Kevin and John.
But for couples like Randy Moore and his husband Greg Peters, the awareness that they are living in a moment that would have been almost unimaginable a generation ago remains. Sometimes Moore, 49, the manager of the Loro Piana boutique in Union Square, thinks about his uncle William and his longtime partner Robert, who first lived together in the Castro in the 1950s, the landmark gay neighborhood that Moore and Peters also call home.
“They saw the city and (same-sex) relationships evolve,” Moore said of his uncles, who are both deceased. “They had joint checking accounts, all that stuff, but they never had the ability to legalize it. We’re living in a time in the U.S. my uncles never had the luxury of experiencing.”