Tonight Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin once again said "I do" to each other in San Francisco City Hall but this time it will be much harder for the powers that be to take it all away. I am feeling a profound sense of gratitude for their life long effort to obtain civil rights for themselves and therefore for people like me.
55 years ago Phyllis and Del fell in love with each other at a time when it wasn't safe at all to be gay. When you could lose your freedom, your job, your family and your life. I am thankful that they had enough sense of confidence in themselves and their love to realize that they were not the ones who were in the wrong, that society was in the wrong. They did not go quietly. And because of them my life is the way it is.
Del and Phyllis lived in a world where gay people, especially lesbians, were invisible and they started the first lesbian organization of its kind the " Daughters of Bilitis". By the I was of age in the 70s, I already had an intense awareness of gay people in the world. I grew up in San Francisco, which is absolutely the luckiest place in the world for a gay person to grow up. My first gay parade took place when I was 13 and my mom took a wrong turn in our blue rambler and there we were on Polk Street in the middle of drag queens with batons and huge gay floats. I waved to the laughing crowd. I guess it was my destiny. All those people, men and women who refused to be anyone but themselves helped me to understand that the person I was, was just fine. It wasn't a wrong turn. We are all a part of the parade in some way or other, trying to find our true unique selves and loving each other along the way.
I know we have a long way to go as do so many others who struggle for political rights. I know that many gay people here at home and especially around the world are at risk. But tonight, on their wedding night, I want to wish Del and Phyllis well and thank them from the very bottom of my heart for their long life of political struggle which has made my life immeasurably better. Now that is politics at its best.