San Francisco’s Family Night

Photo: Josh Harkinson

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


READ ALSO: MoJo’s Josh Harkinson on lovebirds’ reactions and Celia Perry on why she’s been waiting for this ruling since the third grade. Plus: Does Judge Walker’s personal life matter?

The whole family came over. The bears and bois. The dykes and the daddies. The moms and the moms and the dads and the dads carrying their laughing kids on their shoulders and waving American flags. They marched by the thousands from San Francisco’s Castro district down Market Street, just like they have so many times before, in protest, in mourning, or in celebration, but always in stubborn defense of the same principle: that they deserve all the rights afforded to other Americans. And for the moment, the US court system agrees with them.

Though Judge Vaughn Walker’s landmark ruling in favor of marriage equality could be reversed by a higher court, it filled the Castro with a new sense of optimism. “It definitely marks an important milestone in gay civil rights,” said Nathan Oyler, 29, who was carrying a tuba as he marched towards City Hall with the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band. And so too for the Freedom Band, which first formed and marched down this street in 1978 to celebrate the election of gay-rights champion Harvey Milk to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. To commemorate today’s good news, Oyler was going to play Alabama’s “Hey Baby,” because, you know, “It’s a tuba solo.”

Other marchers sounded off on the victory in less dulcet tones. “It’s somewhat bittersweet to think about the discrimination and oppression that LGBT people continue to face,” said David Waggoner, the co-president of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, who was carrying a large cutout of Milk. A T-shirt worn by Miss Jane, a gray-headed civil rights activist, proclaimed: “So who can’t get married now, bitch!” And Christopher Mika, an artist in his 30s, carried a placard with an upside-down cross on it that read: “Eat it Christians!”

Many gays and lesbians remain angry at the Mormon church for covertly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into passing Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriages that yesterday’s court ruling invalidated. Others see a chance to forgive the Mormons and teach tolerance. “For me, it’s very important that we build alliances with people of all faiths,” says Michael Leslie, an openly gay Christian minister. He and his partner were carrying a sign that read, “God is Love.”

“I don’t think that God cares” who we marry, said Sister Titania Humperpickle, a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a 31-year-old mock-religious order that counts 1150 members worldwide. She was wearing a nun’s habit, a coronet made from fabric patterned with pink flowers, and a goatee. Walker’s ruling “is a step towards looking beyond gender, race, and sexuality,” she added, “and I think it proves that it doesn’t matter how much money you have to buy a ballot vote, that eventually truth and justice win out.”

As night fell, the marchers gathered around the steps of City Hall—where Harvey Milk gave his first political speeches, where in 2004 San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wagered his political career on marrying gay and lesbian couples, and where Aaron Peskin now whipped up the crowd. “We are standing on hallowed ground,” said the former president of the city Board of Supervisors. “This is where it all began. It began as a movement that fundamentally changed the city and changed America. They said that it couldn’t be done, but we have done it yet again.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate