AAS322 – FINAL
Eva Chan 
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Family values / Lesbian newlywed breaks barriers just as her parents
did more than 50 years ago Willy Wilkinson, Special to The Chronicle
Published 4:00 am, Friday, March 5, 2004
Vietnam Military Records genealogy.com/Records_Military
1) Simply enter their name. 2) View the military record online!
Georgia Kolias, second from right, and Willy Wilkinson, far right, get married by California
Assemblyman Mark Leno, left, and City Assessor Mabel Teng, during a ceremony in San Francisco
City Hall Thursday, Feb 12, 2004. In a political and legal challenge to California law, city authorities
officiated at the marriages of at least eight same-sex couples Thursday and issued about a dozen
more marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. The act of civil disobedience coordinated by top
city officials pre-empted a conservative group's efforts to block Mayor Gavin Newsom's plan to
license same-sex marriages. (AP Photo/Jakub Mosur) Georgia Kolias (second from right) and Willy
Wilkinson (far right) are married by California Assemblyman Mark Leno (left) and City Assessor
Mabel Teng, in San Francisco City Hall on Feb. 12. Willy Wilkinson (far right) and Georgia Kolias
(second from right) exchange vows in a Feb. 12 ceremony led by Assemblyman Mark Leno (left) and
City Assessor Mabel Teng at City Hall. Photo: JAKUB MOSUR
The morning after my parents went on their
first date, my mother's co-workers rushed up
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FIRST PERSON / Family legacy of fighting
for freedom to love / Lesbian newlywed
breaks barriers just as her parents did
more than 50 years ago
N.Y. judge backs same-sex marriages /
But decision on hold to allow for appeal
S.F., gays argue for 'marriage equality' /
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to her and fervently admonished, "It's just not
done!" "What about the children?" they
demanded. My mother simply replied, "We
just had one date."
The year was 1949. My father had picked up
my mother the night before at the elementary
school where she taught first grade, and they
had enjoyed a night of dancing. For them, their
evening was perfectly innocent and sweet. For
others, it was an abomination. My mother is
Chinese, and my father is Caucasian.
My mother had just begun her career as an
elementary school teacher. The assistant
superintendent told her that as the first
Chinese teacher in the Berkeley schools, "The
eyes of Berkeley will be upon you. If you don't
do well, you will close the doors to other
Orientals coming to Berkeley." For the first
two months of the school year, there were two
rows of observers in the back of her classroom
taking notes on everything she said or did.
When my parents married in 1951, the minister told them that their timing was fortunate,
as California's anti-miscegenation law had just been repealed three years prior. Enacted in
1880, the law prohibited the marriage between a white person and "a Negro, mulatto, or
Mongolian." It was written to prevent intermarriage between Chinese people and whites,
and was supported by San Franciscan and future U.S. Sen. John F. Miller, who in 1878
declared, "Were the Chinese to amalgamate at all with our people ... the result of that
amalgamation would be ... a mongrel of the most detestable that has ever afflicted
the earth."
Vietnam Military Records genealogy.com/Records_Military
1) Simply enter their name. 2) View the
military record online!
In 1945, Gov. Earl Warren reiterated and expanded the ban on interracial marriage to
include "Malays." In 1948, the California Supreme Court ruled against anti-miscegenation
laws in Perez vs. Sharp, calling such laws "by their very nature, odious to a free people."
But social change was less forthcoming. In 1958, the first Gallup poll on the subject found
that 94 percent of white people opposed interracial marriage. That year in Virginia,
newlyweds Richard and Mildred Loving, a Caucasian man and African American woman,
were awakened in the middle of the night by police wielding blinding flashlights and
arrested for violating the state's ban on interracial marriage. The judge who convicted
them ruled that "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and
he placed them on separate continents (because) ... he did not intend the races to mix." It
wasn't until 1967 that the federal ban on interracial marriage was lifted in Loving
vs. Virginia.
Today in 2004, as interracial marriages flourish and mixed-race people abound, these
stories seem archaic, mean-spirited and representative of an era of ignorance left in the
past. But are they? Opponents of interracial marriages considered the unions to be
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"immoral" and "unnatural." Sound familiar?
In 1998, Houston police broke down the doors of John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron
Garner, arresting them under a 28-year-old Texas law making same-sex intercourse a
crime. Last June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' "Homosexual Conduct"
law, ruling it unconstitutional and in violation of the defendants' fundamental right to
privacy and equal protection rights. Considered a major victory for gay rights, the decision
struck down most laws governing private sexual conduct, but it did not affect
marriage laws.
Last Tuesday, President Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriage. Today we are again at a crossroads between the freedom to love and form
families, and the zealous, fearful forces that seek to control these unions.
Call it what you want -- codifying and controlling the rights of marriage for heterosexuals
only, insisting that heterosexuals are uniquely qualified to love each other and raise
families within the institution of marriage, or just plain asserting that heterosexuals know
best -- it all piles up to unequal treatment under the law, and that spells discrimination.
The U.S. Constitution does not allow marriage discrimination on the basis of race, religion
or criminal status. Justices of the Supreme Court have called the freedom to marry a
fundamental human right. Why, then, are same-sex couples legally forbidden from
marrying? And why is it necessary to write discrimination into the constitution and declare
war on gay America?
Granted, not everyone, straight or queer, is fond of the institution of marriage. Some don't
see this as a pressing issue. Fifty percent of heterosexual marriages end in divorce. But
regardless of where folks stand on the issue, everyone deserves the basic human right of
choice. When in the history of this country has separate been equal?
California has the most comprehensive domestic partner law in the country, yet with just
15 rights and responsibilities, it provides little more than 1 percent of the more than 1,000
state and federal legal protections offered to opposite-sex married couples. Marriage
equality is a civil rights issue like any other.
When the smoke clears, it remains to be seen where those of us who married at San
Francisco City Hall -- arguably the happiest place on earth - - stand legally. Some of us
have taken tremendous legal risks, such as binational couples whose immigrant partner
could be deported, and people with disabilities who could lose meager subsistence benefits.
But anyone who has witnessed the marriage rush knows that for many of us, societal
validation and affirmation in the eyes of the law outweigh the risks.
When my wife, Georgia, and I tied the knot at City Hall two weeks ago, we were
unprepared for the flood of emotion that came with it. Although we had been married six
years ago among family and friends in a ceremony with no legal standing, there was
nothing like the feeling of being recognized under the law, whatever that would come
to mean.
Despite the many social and legislative victories in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender arena over the past few decades, same-sex couples have continually been
denied a basic human right that so many others take for granted. The deciding moment
when we finally obtained this right was immeasurably profound.
When you have been told all your life that your very essence is wrong, when you've tried to
play by the rules but got judged anyway, when you've broken all the rules because you had
no choice, when you have fought long and hard for the right to be different, your life boils
down to choices. We choose whether or not to be the best "me" we can be, to not let the
legacy of negativity dictate how we feel about ourselves, and to stand up for ourselves and
not be stunned or bullied into silence. Sometimes we go about our business without having
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FROM OUR HOMEPAGE
to make those choices; sometimes we make them every day. Many times we are required
to make those decisions on the fly without any warning.
For Georgia and me, the decision to get married at City Hall was thoughtful yet immediate.
Like many others in the community, we followed our hearts and didn't look back.
When I had heard Wednesday evening, Feb. 11, that something exciting might be
happening at City Hall at noon the following day, I just knew Mayor Gavin Newsom was
going ahead. Yet when we walked into City Hall at 11:15 Thursday morning, it was
business as usual. We asked someone at the Assessor Recorder's office in Room 190 where
we should go to get a marriage license. Perhaps perceiving us as a straight couple, she
matter-of-factly instructed us to go to the County Clerk's office in Room 168.
But when we arrived at the clerk's office, no one was there. We hesitated in the stillness of
the air. A city employee who appeared to be a lesbian hurried by. We asked her what we
needed to do to get a marriage license, and she told us that they would not be ready for us
until noon.
I ducked outside to see what was going on with the Freedom to Marry demonstration. On
the steps of City Hall before a small group of reporters was Kate Kendell of the National
Center for Lesbian Rights with Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who had just wed in a private
ceremony. Lightning shot me right back into Room 168. I knew it was for real. By the time
noon finally arrived and we got our number to be served, a handful of ebullient couples
stood in line, giddy with the buzz of love, excitement and courage.We were in uncharted
territory, with no guarantee that it wouldn't all be shut down before it even began.
After nervously filling out our paperwork, hands trembling and writing our birth dates in
the wrong place, Georgia and I stood and waited as people behind the counter ran back and
forth, from desk to printer. There was a problem with the software. The licenses only
printed out as groom and bride, which would have been fine with us, but since we are both
legally female, would have voided our documents.
We had waited our whole lives for this moment and now we felt impatient. The person who
was helping us, a slight, bespectacled man -- professional, efficient -- whisked by in the
midst of all the confusion, turned to us, and confided, "As much as this is momentous for
you, you have no idea how momentous this is for me."
After more tension in the back room, he grabbed our form in frustration and exclaimed,
"I'm just going to type it in," replacing "groom" and "bride" with "first applicant data" and
"second applicant data."
With that, we raised our right hands and swore that we had told the truth. Excitedly taking
our license, we wished everyone good luck and walked into Room 190, where
Assemblyman Mark Leno was holding a press conference. Leno was introducing the
Marriage License Non-Discrimination Act, AB 1967, named after the year that anti-
miscegenation laws were repealed on a federal level. In this historic moment at City Hall, I
realized I was continuing my family's legacy of fighting for the freedom to love.
Someone called out, "We have our first couple!" and before we knew it, we had been
ushered in front of the cameras to become the first couple to have a public same-sex
ceremony, officiated by City Assessor Mabel Teng and Leno. I felt awkward and nervous
about all the attention. But as I gazed into Georgia's eyes, a wave of calm passed over me,
just like at our first wedding. This was about us, pure and simple. We've been loving each
other for nine years. We're best friends. She's my family. We'll soon be expanding our
family. She cracks me up every day of my life. Her mind is my playground. She's the soft
place I land in a world that doesn't always make sense.
Although we had written our own ceremony for our wedding in 1998, there was something
surprisingly special about getting married with traditional vows, usually performed for
young, bright-eyed couples before they've journeyed together. When they asked if we
promised to care for each other in sickness and health, there was nothing cliché about it.
We have survived debilitating chronic illness together. For richer or poorer, we felt every
word. Then Mark Leno said, "I now pronounce you ..." and I turned in anticipation and
wonderment about what he was going to say. "...spouses for life," he continued, and I
beamed as I registered this perfect choice of words.
Afterward, as we shared our stories with our new wedding pals, we realized that we had
been so used to second-class status that we hadn't been able to imagine things being any
other way. The caption on an Associated Press photo of us said that these same-sex
weddings were an act of civil disobedience. That may be technically true, but all we were
feeling was the afterglow and excitement of our ceremony, private and sweet in its
meaning yet public in its acknowledgement. A wedding like any other wedding, and that
was the best gift of all.
As word spread in the days that followed, ecstatic queers pulled their sweeties out of work
or school, jumped on red-eye flights or drove all night. They arrived with flowers, family,
friends, Champagne and mariachi bands. They stood in line for hours; they camped
overnight in the rain and bitter cold. Straight, transgender and religious allies brought food,
blankets and good cheer. Through all the sleep deprivation, hunger and soggy clothes, San
Francisco was filled with the spirit of love, dedication, gratitude and generosity. The
community swelled with the sweet triumph of pride like never before.
As the media covered the phenomenon of the busiest wedding chapel in America, we saw
real images of our community in all its warmth and complexity. These were depictions of
everyday people, living everyday lives, emerging out of the woodwork in droves. Couples
who had raised families together, survived cancer and AIDS together, escaped religious
and family persecution together. People who knew exactly what it feels like to care for each
other, day after day, year after year, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, through
discrimination and equal rights.
In 1959, my mother went to San Mateo to interview for a teaching job. The principal said,
"Wilkinson is not a Chinese name. Do you have any difficulties in your marriage?" She
replied, "My husband doesn't have a problem being of another race." The principal slapped
his knees and laughed so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks. The next day, she
received a telegram offering her the job.
My mother retired after 38 years of teaching first grade. In March, my parents, who live in
San Mateo, will celebrate their 53rd anniversary. They've raised four children. They've
cared for each other through all stages of health, finances and discrimination. They are our
role models for the freedom to love and create family.
Next year, on Valentine's Day, an entire community of folks will celebrate their first
wedding anniversaries. Regardless of the machinations of the right, no one will ever take
that away from us. And we are fighting, stronger than ever, to end discrimination and file
this time where it belongs -- in the annals of the historical past.
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