Early in the week leading up to the weddings, Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called Del Martin, 83, and Phyllis Lyon, 79. The two were poised to celebrate the 51st anniversary of their relationship on Valentine's Day. They would become the first couple to marry, offering an example of a long-established lesbian relationship.
Alexandra D'Amario, 38, and Margot McShane, 34, were next. McShane was at work in San Francisco when an ACLU lawyer called to see if the pair wanted to participate. D'Amario, pregnant with twins, was on her way to work as a therapist in Concord, across the bay. She didn't hesitate.
"I whipped the car in the other direction," said D'Amario, 38, who shares a home with McShane in Napa.
She thought about her mother, who died unexpectedly in September and always taught D'Amario to stand up for what was right. She also thought about the twins, four months along, and the rights and protections she wanted for them.
"I just feel that anything that's discriminatory is wrong," she said. "I just think it's important in this time in America to get active.... I can't wait to have children so we can bring them into court."
Jeffrey Wayne Chandler, 43, and David Scott Chandler, 40, country music and dance lovers who have been together 11 years, spoke in their court declaration of the problems they faced when a child they had through a surrogate parent was born prematurely and died. The San Francisco couple had to delay burying the dead child to complete legal paperwork that a married couple would not have been troubled with, they said.
Another couple, Sarah Kristen Conner, 35, and Gillian Zartha Smith, 34, of Oakland, suffered through two difficult years when one was homebound with a disability.
"Being married provides us with important protections that we know will be critical to us when future hardships arise in our lives," they said in their court papers.
A fifth couple, Cristal Rivera-Mitchel and Theresa Michelle Petry, both 43 and San Francisco residents, remain unmarried but hope to wed in the future. They are in the case to represent the harm that would be caused if a court ordered the marriages to halt.
Until recently, leading gay rights groups had shied away from test cases over same-sex marriage. Their initial focus was on court challenges to anti-sodomy laws across the country. That litigation achieved final victory last year when the U.S. Supreme Court declared criminal sodomy laws unconstitutional.
