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On February 12, 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, newly elected to office, opened City Hall to gay and lesbian couples who wanted to marry. By March 11, when the California Supreme Court ruled that the City must stop violating a state law, over 4,000 couples had accepted the invitation. They came from all over the U.S.A.
While some Americans worried about how allowing gays to marry would lead to men marrying farm animals, those of us who saw and felt the happiness of these couples knew it wasn’t about “rights” at all. It was about love.
San Franciscans, recalling the flower children and the Summer of 1967, now refer to this as “The Winter of Love.”
On the Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, ten days after gay couples began marrying, the homilist at a Mass in San Francisco asked if anyone had made a trip to City Hall that week. Five gay and lesbian couples stood up. Much to the surprise of the priest, the entire congregation erupted in sustained, joyous applause.
For those five couples there was nothing “Ordinary” about that Sunday. It was the Sunday the Church blessed their marriages.
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