Yahoo! News - Same-Sex Wedding Festival Flowers in San Francisco
Scores of gays and lesbians having been lining up at City Hall to wed after San Francisco's new mayor Gavin Newsom lifted a ban on same-sex marriages, saying that gays and lesbians have the right to wed under the state's equal protection clause.

But the state of California does not sanction same-sex marriages and voters in 2000 approved a ballot initiative that restricted marriage only to heterosexual couples.

Newsom's order made San Francisco the first place in the nation to allow gays to marry and 90 couples were wed on Thursday.

The uncertainty over whether same-sex marriages will be blocked by the courts did not stop the giddy atmosphere from enveloping City Hall which became a veritable wedding chapel filled with throngs of people carrying flowers, snapping photos and shedding tears.

Seeing the line of people waiting to be married stretched out in front of City Hall, I was struck by how "normal" these happy gay folks looked. I know using the word "normal" in this circumstance is a bit comical, but that is what I thought.

Average Joe Americans in their everyday clothes, people that could be your next door neighbor- no flamboyant drag queens in sequin wedding gowns. I guess I had become accustomed to seeing the media play out the more dramatic, especially in San Francisco. Although if this continues, I'm sure we will see the gowns eventually. :~)

This is very, very cool. I have been grinning from ear-to-ear. Even if these weddings are declared void, it is the first strike in the war. Now more and more people will see how ridiculous and discriminatory a ban is-they will have to look in the face of these people, people just like them, normal folks who just want to live their lives together- and the wheels of equality will slowly turn forward.

It might not be tomorrow, but it will be in my lifetime, maybe sooner than I think.

I hope Gavin Newsom goes down in history.