Same-Sex Marriages Often a Family Affair

The accessory of the moment for this city’s unprecedented stream of same-sex weddings is a baby carriage.

As hundreds of gay couples have converged on City Hall, where city officials are issuing marriage licenses to homosexuals, they have carried the occasional rainbow-hued gay pride flag or political placard. But far more common are strollers, bags of diapers and juice cups -- trappings of the mundane domestic life that many gay couples say they want society to formally recognize.

“We’re already a family,” said Mara McWilliams, a 34-year-old mental health worker from San Jose, as she waited in line for her turn in the clerk’s office Sunday morning. Her 8-year-old daughter, Serena, clutched her leg as McWilliams’ partner of four years, Renee Mangrum, dashed off to get coffee. “This is to show the world we’re already a family. We’re normal, professional people. We’re not here with our freak on.”

The demand for weddings was so high that City Hall was closed before noon and hundreds of people were turned away because officials said they didn’t have the time or resources to meet all the requests. City Hall will be open again today as couples try to get married before a court hearing on the issue Tuesday.

Mayor Gavin Newsom on Thursday opened City Hall to gay couples who want to wed, and decreed that the building would remain open throughout the three-day Valentine’s-Presidents Day weekend.

Many were upset with his decision or by seeing the couples with their children.

A spokeswoman for the Washington-based Family Research Council, which opposes gay marriage, called the child issue “emotional blackmail,” saying it has swayed some people who would not otherwise support matrimony between people of the same sex.

The spokeswoman, Genevieve Wood, said children raised in same-sex marriages are deprived of either a father or a mother, and although that situation also occurs in single-parent homes, “I don’t think public policy should be intentionally creating motherless or fatherless homes. If society makes a strong statement on that, maybe we can discourage these kinds of decisions,” Wood said.

The organization issued a statement that said: “It could not be clearer that the institution of marriage is under a direct assault by homosexual activists, and the people of America must make their voices heard.”

Some of those in line Sunday with children in tow said the issue of gay marriage goes beyond matters of romance.

“There are few factors that make the issue of marriage itself more important than the issue of whether a couple has, or will have, children,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. “What marriage provides is an incredible range of safety net protections that a couple is unable to access through any other mechanism.”

For example, when Laura Bursch was giving birth to her twins two years ago she had complications with the pregnancy. If she had died giving birth, her partner, Stacey Bursch, would have had no legal right to the children.

“They’re my kids too,” said Stacey Bursch, a 36-year-old manager for The Gap in San Francisco, as she scooped up a dropped, toddler-size turkey sandwich while waiting outside City Hall for a chance to formally marry Laura. The twins, Zoe and Sophie, sat in a double stroller. “That really, really bothered us.”

Another insult, the couple said, was that the state charged Stacey a fee to formally adopt the two girls once they were born to Laura, who was impregnated through the use of a sperm bank. At that time the two women were living together and Laura had taken Stacey’s last name.

Still, Stacey said, “we had to pay $4,000 to adopt our own children.”

The two women fussed over the twins as the line of several hundred people crept along under an unseasonably warm February sun. They had been waiting nearly an hour and were still a full block away from the entrance to City Hall.

“As hard as it’s going to be to do this with the babies, I want them to know that our relationship means something,” Stacey said.

Carole and Cheryl Kohler-Crowe did not bring their children on Saturday -- it would have been too unwieldy. The Sonora couple have 10 of them.

The children range from 8 to 38 years old. Two are Carole’s biological children from a long-ago relationship. The other eight are adopted and many have disabilities. The two women, who linked their original last names to form a new one years ago, have run group homes for special-needs children.

“Our children are so excited about this,” said Carole Kohler-Crowe, 57. “They are so sad they couldn’t come.”

The two kept their brood updated through regular cellphone calls as they inched toward the entrance to City Hall. They spoke about how complicated it has been to raise so many children without a formal, legal recognition of their 20-year union.

“You have to do a lot of planning and spend quite a bit of money to protect your children,” Carole Kohler-Crowe said as Cheryl stood next to her. “You have to have a trust and set it up because she and I are legal strangers until we get to the front of the line.”

At the front were Danny Yu and Patrick Fitzgerald. Their 3-year-old adopted son, Deckland, pranced on the City Hall steps, paying little notice to his stuffed bear, which lay on the ground.

The couple had arrived at 6:30 a.m. in hopes that they would be wed by the child’s nap time.

“We want him to grow up with the sense that he’s entitled to feel proud of himself and his family,” Yu said.