It's all about Love (MORE)
I've had several phone calls from friends and acquaintances to talk about the beginning of same-sex marriages, with diverse reactions. One call was from someone who isn't sure what they really think about the whole thing, and they saw our common friends Ruth & Diane on the news and were so happy both for and with them. So I thought I'd post a list that I received yesterday describing briefly the couples that were invited to be the first to be married at city hall last night. Their stories put a real breathing human face on something that remains distant for many Californians today. Yeah Diane & Ruth!!!!
To be married on Monday, June 16, 2008
Mayor Ronald Dellums, Marriage Celebrant
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Witness
Karen Boyd and Samee Roberts
We have been together since 1999. As long-time City employees with 12 and 21 years of dedicated service respectively, we became friends while planning the dedication ceremony for Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall . A year later, our love blossomed. We were joined as domestic partners in September 2003 and married during the 2004 Winter of Love wedding ceremonies in San Francisco . Our love of Oakland is manifested in our passionate commitment to public service and casting a bright light on all that makes Oakland a great place to live, work and experience. We are mothers to a beautiful, 20-month old son Quinn, who inspires our love every day.
Brendalynn Goodall and Nancy Hinds
We have been together for the past 15 1/2 years. It started with romance and dating. It then evolved into living together and later owning a home for the past seven years in lovely Sheffield Village with their miniature schnauzer, Raven. We registered as domestic partners in 2002. Brendalynn is the Aging & Adult Services, Manager with the City of Oakland , Department of Human Services, and Nancy is a Human Resources Specialist with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In addition, we have been politically, socially, and culturally active in the LGBT community. We are both members of the African American Lesbians 40+ Group. As long time Oakland residents, we are both proud to demonstrate diversity in action. Our immediate and extended families have been supportive of various milestones in our lives. We love and care for each other and believe Oakland is a great place to grow old. We both are elated to be part of this historic day of human rights for all people.
Mauricio Perez and Ryan James
We have been together 7 years and are lifelong California residents. We were first married on Valentines Day in San Francisco City hall in 2004, just after purchasing a home together in Oakland . After being married, we became the Alameda County chapter leaders for Marriage Equality USA. We also volunteer our time to the Lavender Seniors, PFLAG East Bay , The Chabot Space Center and The Oakland Museum of California. In 2007, we donated our original VOID marriage license to the Oakland Museum of California, hoping one day to replace it with a valid document issued from our own county. We are very proud and honored to be a part of Alameda County and the City of Oakland .
Akemi Hamai and Amy Haruyama
We have been together for 19 years when they met in college in 1989. We had a commitment ceremony with family and friends in 1994 and registered as domestic partners in 2000. Akemi teaches middle school in Berkeley and Amy teaches first grade in Oakland . We are also the proud mothers of 2 daughters, Maya (10 years old) and Anna (6 years old), who keep our lives busy with school, Temple , and social activities. We are excited for our family to be a part of this historic moment.
Mar Stevens and Saundra "Sandy" Mills
We have been together for nine years. When the Supreme Court decision was rendered we were ecstatic to be able to further validate our love and devotion to one another through marriage. We share a love for the City of Oakland . Sandy is a Southern California native who moved to Oakland in 1981 to do an emergency medicine internship and residency at Highland Hospital and never left. She has worked as an emergency medicine physician in the Bay Area for over twenty years. Mar is a public servant and has worked in the San Francisco District Attorneys Office as an Assistant Criminal Investigator for nine years after leaving the public sector to work on the other side. To be a part of history as one of the first couples to be married in California, and to have the privilege and honor to be married by Mayor Dellums and Congresswoman Barbara Lee is truly a dream come true.
Huda Jadallah and Deanna Karraa
We are Palestinian -Americans born and raised in California . We have been together for over 17 years. We have two domestic partnerships: one by the City and County of San Francisco in 1995 and one by the State of California in 2001. We have three children including twin boys age 10 (Omar and Hady) and a daughter age 7 (Hind). Deanna works for Alameda County ’s Public Health Department as a Public Health Nurse and Huda is a PhD Candidate in Sociology whose work focuses on Queer Arab American Families. We feel honored to be a part of this historical moment and acknowledge with gratitude all the pain and labor of everyone who helped pave the road for this day.
David James Bellecci and Jason Victor Serinus (pronounced serene-us)
On February 13, 2004, the second day of San Francisco's month of lavender love, we looked in each other's eyes beneath the rotunda of San Francisco City Hall and made a spiritual commitment to love, honor, nurture and protect each other for the rest of our lives. Jason, a veteran of the civil rights, anti-war, and early gay liberation movements, is thrilled that two of his freedom fighting idols, Ronald V. Dellums and Barbara Lee, will together seal the couple’s indelible commitment into law. David, a proud Oakland native, is tenor (Cantor at St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church), hair stylist, and freedom-loving husband beloved and adored by a huge circle of family and friends. We met in April 2002, and fell madly in love shortly thereafter.
Victoria Susan Kolakowski and Cynthia Anne
We met in September 1994, and quickly fell in love. Victoria is an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission, the transgender outreach director for Marriage Equality USA, and board member of the Transgender Law Center . Cynthia is news editor of the Bay Area Reporter, one of the country's premiere LGBT newspapers. Our marriage in San Francisco on February 12, 2004 was invalidated by the California Supreme Court, and we subsequently registered as domestic partners with the state. We are thrilled to be married in Oakland on the first day of California 's recognition of marriage equality. We live together in Oakland with our Welsh corgi Nicky and three cats, Slider, Puff and Espresso.
Diane Pfile and Ruth Villasenor
We have been together for 10 years and have been registered domestic partners for 8 years. In 2000, we purchased a home together in Oakland . Envisioning the potential of our neighborhood, we decided to open Paws & Claws, A Natural Pet Food Store & Bathhouse in the Dimond district in 2004. We share our home with our two dogs J.J. and Bandit, and our elderly cat Macabre. We love Oakland for its diversity and are honored to be part of this historic ceremony.
Karen Anderson and Gwen Boozé (Boozé is pronounced Boo-zay).
We have shared a life together since 1991. We became friends upon Karen's arrival to Oakland in 1985 and soon learned of our mutual interests, and community concerns. We are board members of the East Bay Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA), as well as members of African American Lesbians - Forty Plus. Karen is past member of the Oakland Human Relations Commission and an employee of the Peralta Community College District; while Gwen, a graduate of Mills College , is past owner of The Barn Restaurant in Oakland and current owner of Accutech Auto Care of Berkeley. We have been Oakland home owners since 1993 and are pleased to share our commitment to each other with the community. This ceremony is an acknowledgement of a promise already made.
Jason Cornejo and Mauricio Calderon
We have been together since 1997. We met and fell in love while living in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles. We moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the year 1999. Later, we purchased a home in the Millsmont area of Oakland in 2002. A major member of our family is named Cocoa Chanel. She is a beautiful chocolate labrador (we are avid fashion aficionados, hence her name). We love gardening, trying new recipes in the kitchen and improving upon they little home. It is our pride and pleasure to be a part of this historic civil rights movement and look forward to the time when racism and discrimination against same-sex marriage will all be but a fleeting memory.
Helga Sigvaldadóttir and Lexi Leban
We met seven years ago in the summer of 2001, while Helga, a native of Iceland was studying for her test to become an American citizen. We moved to Oakland together a year later and have been in Oakland ever since. We were married in 2004 during the Winter of Love ceremonies in San Francisco and became domestic partners before the birth of our daughter Sóla in September of 2005. We are proud to raise our daughter in Oakland , a beautifully diverse city where our family is accepted and celebrated by the community. We would like to thank Mayor Dellums and Barbara Lee for their support of civil rights for all.
Margot Yapp and Koko Lin Margot (“t” is silent)
We have been together for 11 years and this will be the third time that we have married each other. The first was in our commitment ceremony at Tilden Park in 2002, the second in San Francisco in 2004 and hopefully, this will be the third and final time in Oakland . Margot is the Vice President of Nichols Consulting Engineers and Koko has her own software consulting business in Oakland . We are first generation immigrants from Malaysia and Taiwan and own a house together in Oakland . And just like the other straight couples and families in our neighborhood, we shop at local stores, go to the Farmer’s Market on Grand Avenue , eat in Chinatown , and watch movies at Jack London Square .
We have a wonderful 4 year old daughter, Megan, and want her to grow up knowing that the right for Mama and Mummy to love and marry each other is protected by her country. We also hope that this is just the first day of forever for GLBT couples to finally get married!
Dignan Phoenix Banes and William Marion Jennings (Dignan is pronounced dig – nan)
We have been together since the fall of 2002 when we met at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco after Sunday morning services. We haven’t been apart since that day, being declared domestic partners in 2005. Though we dreamed of it, marriage seemed so out of reach until this day when we could, at last, publicly celebrate loving each other as we have been blessed to do for the past 6 years. Family, community and service are pillars of our relationship. Will is a retired teacher from Bay St. Louis Mississippi, who worked for over 40 years as an educator. Dignan, originally from Omaha , Nebraska , is a retired organizational development consultant who now manages communications for LifeLong Medical Care, a community based health organization serving low income residents of Alameda County . We continue our work together at Glide Church as well where Dignan volunteers as an interpreter for the Deaf and Will serves as an usher. Our marriage is a testament that love crosses all barriers including age and color lines. We could not be happier than to be among those married by the Honorable Ron Dellums with Barbara Lee as witnesses, two leaders who have continuously stood for the cause of equality and justice for all.
Tara Miller and Linda Jo Morton
We met in the summer of 1997 at a back yard B.B.Q. in San Francisco . Tara, a dedicated kindergarten teacher, and Linda Jo, an Artist and Student of Horticulture and Photography; We formalized our commitment to each other in a back yard spiritual ceremony six years later at our Oakland home. Our son, now 2 ½ was born two years later. Our lives together have been marked by love, hard work, trials, good planning, and blessings from the Universe. This historic day will be among our many counted blessings.
Maya Hart and Monifa Porter
John and Dennis Hanley
We have been together since 2001 and became domestic partners in 2003. We were denied the opportunity to marry during the San Francisco Winter of Love wedding ceremonies by just 24 hours. We formally joined as partners in a loving ceremony with family and friends in October 2004. John is a major gift administrator at the UC Berkeley. Dennis is a key account manager with Le Creuset of America , and served as Charter Co-chair with the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center , and as Board Chair of the Asian AIDS Project. In 2006, we welcomed into their home three wonderful boys from the California foster care system, and in 2007 we legally adopted Isaac (8), Brian (6) and Christian (5). As longtime residents of Oakland , we are active in the Redwood Heights Elementary School community and are proud to truly represent the diversity of Oakland as a tri-racial family. We are honored to be included among the first gay couples married by Mayor Dellums on this important day in California history.
Robin Baker and Kathleen "Feney" Matthews (Feney is pronounced FEE-KNEE)
We have been together for three years and recently moved into our new home in Berkeley . We were looking into getting married in Canada or Spain when the amazing decision was handed down by the California Supreme Court. We have dedicated our lives to justice. Robin is the Director of the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health , which advocates for workers' rights to safety and dignity on the job. Feney is an ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service where she researches declining native fish and amphibians in the Sierra Nevada . We are thrilled to be among the first couples to exercise their right to marry in California , and to be married by Mayor Dellums with Congresswoman Barbara Lee as witness, two giants in the civil rights movement.
La Raye L. Lyles and Lisa Fujie Parks (Fujie is pronounced FOO-JEE-EH)
Our story began in Oakland in the fall of 1999. Re-meeting after many years, we feel in love and developed a commitment that was fast and deep. Eight months into the relationship, while we were camping in Baja for three weeks and on our last day, La Raye wrote in the sand, “Lisa Fujie, Will you be my baby’s Momma?” And Lisa said, “Yes!” Since then, each day we’ve deepened our bond, becoming domestic partners in 2004 and parents to our beloved daughter Sekai in 2006. As African Americans whose ancestors were not allowed to legally marry until after the end of the Civil War (1865) and as mixed race person who's parents were married the year that all anti-miscegenation laws were overturned (1967), we celebrate our love and another milestone in the pursuit of freedom and justice.
