Kamala Harris reconnects with couple whose wedding she officiated in 2004.
WASHINGTON — On Valentine’s Day in 2004, Brad Witherspoon and Raymond Cobane decided to go get married.
They drove to San Francisco City Hall, expecting to walk in, get a certificate and have a justice of the peace or clerk recognize their 18-year relationship. They brought no family, no witnesses and no photographer.
Instead, they arrived to samesex couples in their dresses and tuxedos lined up around the block. They were met by Witherspoon’s co-workers, boss and his boss’ young daughter. Then they were told the name of their officiant: then-District Attorney Kamala Harris.
Witherspoon and Cobain are one of the rare couples who were married by Harris, now the vice president, during her first term in elected office. The ceremony took place in the 29-day period known as San Francisco’s Winter of Love, when the city defied federal and state law and allowed same-sex couples to marry.
Witherspoon, now the finance manager for a public affairs firm, and Cobane, a retired high school English teacher, reconnected with Harris via Zoom on Monday for the first time since she officiated their wedding 20 years ago.
“It was very emotional. I remember standing there with Kamala. I was trying not to cry … and I just started bawling. And then Kamala was crying, and Ray was crying. And I realized at that time how important this was,” Withervalidating told the Chronicle.
“I reflect on that weekend with such a fond memory of what it meant for so many people. But for the two of you — I didn’t fully appreciate how many people were in loving, committed relationships and just legally were not able to seal the deal,” Harris told the couple Monday. “It was such a special moment, and it was all about love.”
Cobane said people normally plan for a big ceremony, with relatives and friends attending.
“This wasn’t that, exactly, because it was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” he said. “Seeing all those other people there and waiting in line in the same situation we were in — probably hadn’t planned on doing any of this — and here it happened. It was kind of magical.”
The couple had forgotten who officiated their wedding that day, until another historic day — when Harris was elected vice president.
“We were one of the few couples that can say that they’ve been married by the vice president of the United States. And so that was really special for us, and it just made us feel a part of history,” Witherspoon said.
The couple’s marriage represents “a really beautiful love story,” Harris told them Monday, one that’s “had an impact on history, and history has had an impact on your love story.”
Then-Mayor Gavin Newsom made the decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples just three weeks into his first term. He expected a court injunction to come immediately, but it didn’t for 29 days. From Feb. 12 to March 12, 2004, San Francisco issued 4,039 marriage licenses; all were later nullified. It took another 11 years and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling for same-sex unions to be recognized federally.
Harris officiated same-sex weddings again in 2008 when the state Supreme Court overturned Prop. 8, a 2008 voter initiative that banned same-sex marriage in the state. Harris declined to defend Prop. 8 when she was California attorney general in 2013, and she officiated more same-sex weddings that same year when the law was blocked.
LGBTQ advocates now fear that a Supreme Court decision inspoon marriage equality would once again make Prop. 8 the law of the land in California and are attempting to officially remove it from the state Constitution in the November election.
Getting married “was one of those things that made me feel that I was accepted — whether everybody accepted it or not. It was a legal thing, at least for a while,” Cobane said.
Witherspoon and Cobane will celebrate their 38th anniversary as a couple this year.