Get Used to It: Ep. 144, "Marriage Equality"

(keyboard clacking) (keyboard clacking) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used To It". I'm Sheila Kuehl and I generally guide your way through our show about issues of interest to the lesbian, gay, transsexual, bisexual, questioning, inquisitive, independent and now straight ally community. So that's all of you watching. And since we're beaming to you from California, guess what we're gonna talk about today? Right. Marriage, marriage, suddenly for everybody in California. And there's giddiness, I have to tell you, there's an immense kind of joy. But there's a lot going on about people making these decisions. So today on the show I invited two women, long time friends of mine. Whose wedding I officiated at back when we could get married in San Francisco. And then that was annulled. They've been together about 400 years. They have a son and now they are going to do the real thing and tie the knot, again. Jackie Goldberg, who is a long, long time activist in our community, was a teacher, a member of the school board in LA, a member of the LA City Council, member of the California State Assembly, chair of the Education Committee there. And now is a, let's see, an advisor to the Education Graduate School at UCLA, advising teachers in a project working in the city of Compton. Which is a very impoverished part of LA county and doing a great job, Jackie, welcome. - Nice to be here Sheila. - And her let's see, partner then spouse, now partner and soon to be spouse, wife whatever. Wonderful woman Sharon Stricter. Sharon was the executive director of an organization in Los Angeles. Literacy, arts, culture, education and recreation was a center when it was first established. Now it's a big program, after school program. She's still a consultant for that program and a writer, she's writing a script and I asked her if there was a part in it for me. I hope there will be, Sharon, welcome. - Welcome, thank you very much Sheila, glad to be here. - I'm so glad you guys are here and I'm so excited about your upcoming wedding. Which I get to officiate at again. - [Jackie] Yes. - [Sharon] Yes, yes. - So I wanna kind of talk to you as not only your own personal story. But really sort of a surrogate for the thousands, and thousands and thousands of us that are getting married here in California. A little bit of history if I might ask, even before you knew each other. Sharon lemme start with you. Gimme a little of your sort of life story, grew up. Were you married before you know the, before you met Jackie. - Okay, so I was born in Chicago and I became a teacher. I got married at a young age, I was 22. Moved to the East Coast at that time and continued my teaching career. Then came out here to California in '70, 1970. And continued teaching, I worked in Los Angeles Unified School District. And then in '75 my marriage ended and I was here in California. I had long wanted to do writing, and theater and that. And so that's what I began to do. In the interim I'd always been politically involved and I was asked by some friends to teach a class and actually is the new American school. And it was for how you could survive as a socialist teacher, essentially in the public school system. (laughs) And so.-- (indistinct) like a good class. - I said well, I don't wanna teach that class alone. And they said well, how about we can hook you up. - [Sheila] Unless there's other socialist teacher? - Right. (laughing) I said well, okay now you have to understand. I was sort of like trying not to be political at this point in time, okay? So they hooked me up with this woman, Jackie Goldberg. Whom might know and known from afar. And I knew she did wonderful things in the women's union and so forth. But I'd never actually face to face met her. So I met her that evening, and she turned around and said to me, look at me straight in the eye. And she said well, you know, if we're gonna do anything I think we have to work on the school desegregation case. That's coming here to Los Angeles because we don't want another Boston. And I thought oh no, boy am I in trouble now? She's absolutely right, cut to the core, said exactly the truth. And what am I going to do? Say no, I mean this is a core issue for me too. I grew up in the 40s and the 50s you know, this was a heartbeat. And that's when it began. And that's when our political affiliation began. That's when we began to fall in love with one another. And from 1976 to 1979 when we actually officially committed to each other, moved in together. And you know, as far as I'm concerned we were married at that point. And we've lived our lives as married people since then. And here we are now getting officially married in a legal sense. - That's so wonderful I can hardly wait. - [Sharon] I know me too. - Although it's like you said, it's already been real. It's been real all along? - [Sharon] Yes, yes. So Jackie, how about you up until '76, what was your story? - Oh let's see, I grew up in Inglewood, California. A bastion of racism, and sexism and homophobia. - Sounds great, I was living right over the hill from you. (laughing) - And I always knew I was gonna be a teacher. I went to Berkeley in the University of Chicago, just miss Sharon. She left Chicago when I was arriving. Had one near brush with marriage. A man I really, truly cared deeply for but he was an Western Airlines pilot. And he was based in Colorado. And if we got married I was gonna have to move to Colorado. And I just could not see myself living in some small town in Colorado. Even if I could still be a teacher. So we decided to just stay friends and that ended that. And then Sharon calls me up and says, I wanna come to your house and tell you about this Nam school project. And I thought oh, that's what I need to do. You know I'm teaching in Compton, it's got enough on my plate, thank you very much. But she came and I said what she said. I said you know, I was horrified after all of the protestations to the contrary about liberal northerners, White northerners, that the liberal White northerners in Boston were burning buses during the school desegregation. And I thought that that could happen in Los Angeles. And I had been thinking already about what to do to try to make it clear that there was a White presence that supported desegregation and thought it was a healthy thing. And I had a year-old son that was gonna be in the system. - [Sheila] You had a son? - Yeah he was, Brian was born in '75. And so I you know, I had a commitment both as a teacher and as a parent, not yet in school. But as a parent who would have a child in the public schools to school desegregation. And that summer we started a group called the Integration Project, which had no money. And we intervened in the court case on the side of representing White parents who supported desegregation. Because bus stops said, that they were the White parent group. And we said, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. We're the White parent group. No, no, no they're the White, so we intervene. And because we had no money, bus stop had a fortune. We had no money, we really got to know each other because we did most of the legal work, at night in my living room. One night with the... I'll never forget as long as I live. You know what interrogatories are? - [Sheila] Sure. - You're an attorney but a lot of people don't. This is where people ask each other questions and answers. Well, the school district's approached to defeating the ACLU and Maldif was to paper them with, I mean hundreds, of millions of questions and to be an intervener if we didn't submit answers to the interrogatories, we might lose our standing. So Sharon and I spent like three nights, all night long. Answering these endless numbers of interrogatories. No computers. So we're typing them, of course you know, to try and, I think that's really when we began to fall in love. - [Sheila] It's a wonderful way to get together. - [Jackie] That's how we fell in love. - Can I do a follow up question about Brian though? Because it was now suddenly Brian is in your life. How did this happen? Said you had had a brush with marriage but it didn't turn into a marriage. - I knew from the time I was very little that I wanted to be a parent. I'm sure that's because I had such wonderful parents. One of whom is still alive. But I knew that that was, that I was not going to be happy if I wasn't. And as I hit my mid 20s, I began thinking well, doesn't look like I'm gonna get married. This is actually, I wasn't even sure I was a lesbian yet. I just didn't think I was gonna get married. And so I began exploring ways to get to have a child and I could get pregnant. I had several wonderful men in my life who offered. I could not avail myself of artificial insemination. They were not doing that with single women at all, or I could adopt. And I actually really thought about getting pregnant. And then I realized that I was a public school teacher in the mid 1970s where it was not so thought of fond of to have an unmarried woman be pregnant. - They wouldn't really let you stay in the classroom? - Well, no that's true. But I was worried more about losing my job on moral turpitude issues. You see, that's a big issue for teachers. There's this thing called moral turpitude where you're not fit to be in a classroom. And I'm not sure that would've happened but enough people said that it wasn't a slam dunk that it wouldn't. And so I decided to adopt and I adopted a infant boy who I took home from the hospital. Wasn't too excited, he was actually born in Pompano Beach near Miami. And I got on the wrong plane with him to come home when he was three-days-old and ended up in Texas. With my whole family sitting in LAX wondering, watching this plane empty and wondering why there's no woman with a baby getting off the plane. But the airline was so excited about this newborn baby that there was one of those where the two doors are side by side and they just put me on the wrong plane. I mean I went on first, so they got me on another plane and home to LAX. I think I was like maybe 20 minutes late. 'Cause I had this little three-day-old kid in my lap you know. And he was about a year old when we met. - So you moved in together after three years of knowing each other? - [Sharon] Yeah, yeah. - Now that must have also been scary or not. Is this such a wonderful community that you didn't really have a problem about that? - Well, fortunately Echo Park is a great place because it was a, it was. And I think for the most part still is a place that accepts interracial couples, that accepts different kinds of relationships, accepts, it's a very accepting place. It was, at that time much more economically integrated, poor to upper, middle class. There weren't any fabulously wealthy people there. But to upper, middle class everybody lived in the same. What we call Echo Park Homes, which are small., they aren't large. And they might be on a pretty good sized piece of property. But the house itself is pretty small. And it was a pretty accepting place. But it was also an accepting place because when I arrived back out of the university of Chicago. We began developing our own community. It had a long history of being a progressive artist community and artists are typically I think, much more open to the full range of diversity. - But what about the schools? Because Brian was going to have to be eventually, enrolled in school. You were no doubt a co-parent? - [Sharon] Yes. - In reality, but this must have been an issue with the school? - [Jackie] Well, we knew it was a little dice. Oh now with the school so much. - We took it on somewhat obliquely. We took it on in the following way, where it said parent or guardian we put both our names down. Where it said, father I would just line out the line and just say other guardian. You know what I'm saying? So I didn't say lesbian but two women parenting a child. If you had a brain in your head you might have figured it out. - [Sheila] So all those rules at school, I'm interested 'cause you clearly would've had the right. But Sharon supposing you have to go pick Brian up at school. - So you were on all the papers and.-- - We signed a million documents, a million papers. I mean one of the things that marriage will take care of for a new generation of lesbian and gay couples is, I have a suitcase of legal documents this thick of every effort we tried to make to protect her right In the case that I died for Brian. Now my parents would not have tried to take him away. But you don't know what happened, maybe they perished with me in an, you know what I'm saying? So we had, and we went to the county about a dozen times and the county said well, yeah, of course she could be his legal guardian as long as you renounce your guardianship. - [Sheila] Exactly, right. - I said well, that doesn't give us a net gain of anything. We're trying to both be his legal guardian, can't do it, can't do it. - But we always lived under a little anxiety to answer your question. I mean that's just the truth of it. There was always a pretty much underlying. Not particularly spoken because we didn't ever really truly have to confront it. The school was fine with us. And I think because we were both teachers, we knew how to work the system fairly well. - Although our son did say when he was about, what, third or fourth grade? - No, first grade. - First grade. He said, I'm not sure I want both of you to go to the parent conference. And I said, why? And he said well, 'cause you argue like a couple. (laughs) - And you'll be found out. - And you'll disagree and everybody will know. - That's right, right. (laughing) - When they say out of the mouths of babes. - [Sheila] That's what they say. - But we told him that wasn't an option and we both went Although we did try to not argue in front of the teacher. - But you were in a relationship, it was like a marriage to you. You were both parenting Brian. - But there were still you know, certain.-- - Oh, there're a lot of anxieties. There're a lot of anxieties. You don't, you just don't know. I mean it was, people don't really, I think have any idea of what parenting is like without any support from the law. You just don't know. You hope for the best but you don't know. I wrote wills, I wrote carousel to the wills. I wrote guardianship replacement documents, I mean I really, I have, I learned a hell of a lot of you know, family law from what one could do with a person who was otherwise not related to you, was how the language was. - And what about I, the other thing about marriage that's really different and we'll go through the various iterations of you know, partnership, domestic partnership, et cetera. Really has to do with public acknowledgment. Because in our own, even in our own families. Somebody has a wedding, we don't, we didn't. Somebody moves in together as you know, their first house as a married couple. People kinda know how to acknowledge that. So you were kind of living your lives as a couple. But did you get acknowledged as a couple? - Well, when I moved in on current street where we live now in 1979, when we moved in, October the first. Which up till now has been our anniversary. We've celebrated as October the first, 1979. When we moved in my mother insisted that there would be a housewarming with all of the living relatives coming to the house, and seeing the house and bringing housewarming gifts. And she was really insistent that that was going to happen. And I know that from her point of view, 'cause she told me, I mean it wasn't a guess. She said you know, you've gone to all their weddings. You've given them all wedding gifts. You're not gonna have a wedding. They're gonna come and bring you something. It's just, and they're gonna know that this is a household. - Well, that's fortunate. - [Sharon] We were very lucky. - I mean of course a lot of people don't have them. - [Jackie] That's right. - [Sharon] We were very lucky. - She was very supportive. And I think she was quite a, an unusual woman. I mean she's 97 years old and living with us today. Which is kind of a amazing. - [Sheila] And she's gonna be at the wedding. - [Sharon] She's gonna be at the wedding. She missed it, the first one. - But she always accepted me as a daughter. She always treated us as a family. She was very much ahead of her time I suppose in some ways. And my mother who was in Chicago, was a little reticent. - [Sharon] Irish catholic. - My brothers and sisters all took, were fine. But she had some hesitation. - Yes she had a lot of hesitations. - But you know, once she got to know us and you know, there was a funny time when she wanted to know, how did she ask you? - But she said to me, why do you let him call, why do you let him call Sharon mother? He's gonna be confused. And I said, no really with all due respect. He can tell us apart. (laughs) she's the blonde. - Blonde. - And I have.-- - She's the Bruner. (laughing) - And you know, she went along with it from there on and you know, I think both.-- - There was a lot for her to take in because the first time she met me. We stayed at her house with the three of us, Brian, and Sharon and I. I thought that was a lot for her to take in this Irish catholic woman. - But she wanted what was best. - And she wanted her to be happy. - For me and for Jackie. - Well, you know sometimes they come around, they have so much invested in. - [Sharon] Yes, exactly. - That they have any sense at all. It's kind of like they don't wanna lose it. - I don't think her mother would've ever wanted us to use the word. Ever, and we didn't, that was our accommodation. But we slept in the same bed in her house. - And by the end of her life she would ask me, how was your son? And this is long before even domestic partnerships. So you know, that was pretty amazing. We were very lucky, I mean they loved us. The community in Echo Park knew we'd lived together, knew we were a family. But the larger areas were always difficult. I mean people would say well, it's Jackie's son. Well, no actually I was raising him too. But you know that's the public standing that you don't get, people think in those categories so. - [Sheila] Well, even with domestic partners? - Yes. - 'Cause I know you must have felt there was something deficient. Maybe it was simply benefits because when... Well, let's go to when you were on the school board, no benefits, right? - [Sharon] Oh no, she couldn't be covered and she had no health coverage. She couldn't be covered and she had no health coverage. - [Sharon] So for a long time I just had to pay my own healthcare. I mean that's just how it went. - And it wasn't until the city council. When I actually brought the measure to include everybody who was a domestic partner. Now Joel Wachs.-- - But there was no domestic partner registry in the State. - Well, Joel Wachs had one for the city. - So city comes whatever in LA. - But what he got he was bereavement leave. And there were like five people who signed up for it because it was a public document. So if you're gonna get bereavement leave and nothing else nobody signed up for it even though there were a lot of.-- - Public document being saying, I'm gay, I'm signing up for this? - [Jackie] Yeah, that's right. So once I added real benefits to it that in the city of Los Angeles would be a, a equal partner treat to domestic partners equally. Then a lot of people signed up for it. And it was an interesting thing because it was my first year in office in city council in '93. And I called the head of personnel, the director. And I said, you know I'm interested in expanding domestic partnership benefits. Do you have, have you done any research on it? Not knowing he was gay. And he said that do you have time right now? I'll be right over. And he came and he had this folder in which he had researched every city, county, state. And country in the world that did anything along this line. So that everybody wondered how I could do it so quickly. Well, he had done all the research. He had been keeping it up to date. So he knew everything that I needed to do and how to do it and think he guided me through it. - Well, I think it was these, without question these incremental steps you know. We certainly did not go from zero to 60. - [Jackie] No we didn't. - But I guess I'm also interested in how this felt to you. I mean so many in our community said, oh we don't want marriage. We don't need marriage. Look, marriage is not such a hot thing. Look how they do it you know, it's a kind of a bad thing. I know that many meant it because we wanted to either reform it or. Or not, not engage in it you know, not be part of it. But I, once people started getting married. I started to have this feeling that maybe part of it was that we said to ourselves, without understanding exactly. I can't have it so I'm not gonna want it. Do you know what I mean? Kind of like it's not within reach. So we do these sort of trips. - I always wanted to get married. I always wanted to get married. She was wedded. - [Sheila] Had been married? - Had been married and said, I'm not sure I wanna do that again. - Well, Sharon tell me more about your feelings as you felt then. I mean here's, Jackie is expanding domestic partners now you're gonna be called domestic partners in the city only. Did you feel that made a difference or that it was sort of? Tell me about that. - Well, initially I was like, I think a lot a lesbian-gay people and that is running from.-- - You are a feminist. - And a lot of feminist, right. Running from what you know, we saw as a potentially repressive institution quite frankly. And as an institution I was very much against that whole idea. And when we first hooked up for us and for me it was a spiritual contract. It was a love contract. In my opinion we were married from the day we moved in together. We didn't need a no stinking paper as they would say. You know and that was really how I felt that every day was a new day and every day we would meet this challenge of loving each other and staying together. And that was what was important. Well, how we acted on a day to day moment to moment basis. I think when I first came up short against that, however when was Jackie was in the hospital, and I had no status and that really scared me. Because I had heard stories and I've heard stories since then, even worse. You know, where the partner wasn't allowed in the room. The partner had no say in the operation, or the recovery or any of those kind of things. And that was horrifying. And at that particular time I, we had to run out and find somebody practically on the street to sign documents for us. I mean it was crazy. - Because hospital people can't be witnesses to temporary.-- - Power of attorney. - Power of attorney. - [Sheila] Powers of attorney for medical care. - For medical care so I thought you know, when we got to the hospital I thought well, we'll just ask any two people to witness this. And we found out they couldn't so you know, they're waiting before I can go into surgery for her to find somebody to sign this thing. That's not on the hospital staff. And that was very poignant to us. We got that message immediately. - And I think then also, so that was the real significant thing. And then as time went on, especially 'cause I was the parent for Brian. It would, it was anxiety producing that I had no rights and it was always a worrisome thing when you are in public office. Could somebody be mean and nasty enough to do something that would try to take this child away from us. I mean there's always those kind of little anxieties that I lived with. And so when we got domestic partnership that was a very fine thing because now the healthcare stuff is getting intended to as well as the, the healthcare stuff for me. But you know, so that was a major breakthrough and it was a major recognition. And of course as somebody who's against marriage at that time, domestic partnership was just fine. 'Cause I always believed in that. I believe in that for straight people, you know? And that's why I think it's important that that law still stay in effect for people who don't maybe wanna be married. Now however, after going through and I would say really, after going to Sacramento, when you married us the first time. (laughs) What we came to understand was the kind of public recognition, what you're talking about. People sent us gifts from all over. But it was really, whether they were gay, straight. Whether they were in California, Chicago wherever they were, they were acknowledging us in the way that they acknowledge everybody. And that was symbolically important in a major step. - Literally not a day went by for more than a year in which someone didn't come up to me and say, congratulations on your marriage. - Well, lemme take it back before that. Because I really want to explore that, that feeling. It was the same for virtually everyone married in San Francisco you know, in that month and you know, that month of March. But you had gone to the assembly, Carole Migden had put in the first line, established a statewide, domestic partner registry. You did register as domestic partners? - [Sharon] Oh yes. - [Jackie] The first day you could. - And it had only a couple of rights in it to begin with. Then it was expanded. - [Jackie] that's right, same way these is with the city. - Just like the city, then it was expanded a little bit by a second bill that Carole did. And then when you were in the assembly Jackie, say a little bit about what you did and how you came to decide to do it. - Yeah, I had been talking to governor Davis about it saying that I wanted to do something. I didn't wanna be in 15 years, one thing at a time added. And here's said to me, wait a year we've had two in a row. Wait a year and then I will assign staff and we will work on expanding it enormously. And so I agreed and I did nothing the following year and the next year he assigned two people and they were really quite wonderful. But it was the help that I got really from people like, Jenny Pizer and, at Lambda legal and, John Davidson. He was at that time with the ACLU, Lambda Chapter. And those two, particularly Jenny but he is, John as well. And my staff and, the two from the governor's office. We really went through literally, literally every provision in the marriage, the family and marriage codes in the state of California and began writing me too, me too, me too. And then finally we came up with the notion that it would be so much easier to simply say that all of the rights and responsibilities that come with being a spouse will also be with attributed to domestic partners with one exception. And that was filing joint income taxes. And we left that out because the governor asked me to and he less, asked me to leave it out because he said, there's no way to predict whether that will be 'cause a shortfall in revenue for the state. And I don't want that to mucky up the waters. I don't want this to be a fight over the fiscal responsibility. And so while I really wanted it at all, I have to be honest with you. I thought it wasn't an unfair ask. - Well, it was an heroic thing for him to do. I mean he was the first governor to sign anything to help us. - Any non discretion, any non discrimination and that was a big one. The battle to get votes was really one of the most remarkable experiences of my life, I mean really. And the city council had been easy. In fact several people came in when I asked them if they would support it and said, well, I wonder what we waited so long for and I thought about one or two but I didn't say anything. But that was not true in the legislature, in the assembly. We had eight or nine votes, we really had to find. 'Cause we knew we weren't gonna get any Republicans. And we needed 41 votes. I think we actually ended up with 41 though. We had 43, two people were absent on the date we finally took it up. 'Cause we decided once we had 41 in the room, we're going.-- - [Sheila] get 'em on the board. This thing is up. (laughing) - We're going right now. - Well, it was an extraordinary accomplishment. And I guess you know... I mean the next question.-- - [Jackie] And you floored it in the Senate, didn't you? - I did, I presented it in the Senate. It was my privilege as we say. To round up our 21 votes which was a lot easier. 'Cause the Senate at that time was a more liberal house than the assembly, it's changing now. But, so here's the question. All right, so you've done the real heavy lifting. And now at this point in history, the domestic partnership registry has virtually all of the rights and responsibilities. That married people have in the state of California. Why wasn't that enough? - Well you know, the difference is, I actually wrote an op-ed piece about this. 'Cause I just found it as we're getting ready for our marriage, I was looking through all the things in my files on this subject. I think there's a huge difference. The huge difference is domestic partnership is about a contract conferring rights. But it is not about societal equality. It is not about equality before the law. Because equality about, before the law means you are treated exactly the same, in the same circumstances. This isn't that, you don't need a ceremony to be a domestic partner at all. Nothing has to happen, you have to get a notary to sign your who you say you are and you aren't married to anybody else. You don't, you do it through the secretary of state and you don't do it through the county clerk's office in your county. But more than that. Their institution of marriage as a state's right and it is a state's right. There's nothing in the US constitution about it, it's a state's right. And that is a, accepting of a relationship as being something before the law. That means something in the society and domestic partners we are never going to be that. That was just never going to be that, it was a technical way to put you off to the side. And in fact to permanently claim that you were not equal. It's permanent inequality. You can't go through the same door. You can't even come into the same office to get it taken care of. And it's so unimportant. We don't even require any solemnization of it whatsoever. - And your French don't know what to do about it. It's kind of like you sign up. - [Jackie] Right, exactly. - [Sharon] And that what we did. You know like you sign up for school, which is important You know you sign up for. - [Jackie] Could get a driver's license in the same kind of situation. - So now it is four years ago, March. And Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco decides that he's going to simply declare that marriage equality is constitutional. Turns out he was right, in California. And now the question for virtually every gay couple in the state is should we go to San Francisco and get married? Should we get married? So how did that conversation go between the two of you? - Well, we had pretty well decided not to do it. (laughs) - Because we had all those rights. You know, one of the things I was gonna say after the domestic partnership legislation came in. The next day I ran down to the children's court and I could legally adopt Brian who by then was 27. (laughs) But that's okay because.-- - [Jackie] We did it. - We did it and that was you know, that just allayed all of those, all those fears. All of those anxieties about that whole relationship. So that was a really wonderful blessing. But again, nothing public, no public recognition like what you're saying. So we had pretty much you know, we weren't gonna get married. We in many ways did not believe it would ever happen in our lifetime. I think we didn't think it was happening. - [Jackie] I definitely didn't think it would happen in my lifetime. - But you know, it became, you're right. I mean ultimately it was a political decision. We thought it was very important to do this, to participate in this. If Gavin knew some was gonna go out on a limb and say that we were gonna go right there with him and join in and participate. - Well, you had something to do with it too by telling me you were doing these other couples. Most of whom I knew pretty well. And I began to think you know, that we have an LGBT caucus in the state legislature. None of whom were going to get married. I thought that was, I don't know. I didn't think that was such a good idea. So we just said, all right we're going. And we told almost no one. Oh, people were furious at us. - You hadn't told them. - [Sharon] That's right. - [Jackie] Oh my God did we get yelled at? - [Sharon] We came home. - Well, that's interesting, isn't it? - [Sharon] Yes. Because no one was serious that you signed up to be domestic partner without telling. - [Jackie] Exactly. - I don't mean to state the obvious but I mean, over and over. - [Jackie] I can't tell you how much junk we got from people they said, (indistinct). - But to going back for a minute to what you said about it being a political decision. The other women who were married with you by me that same day. Virtually saw it the same way. Like it was a kind of a protest. Now you came over from Sacramento as I did. But they flew up from LA that morning. And they felt it was a political act. You know we were gonna do it, we were gonna stand. And of course the couples that stood in line in the rain to get their licenses and you know, for hours. But when we got to San Francisco. - [Jackie] It was a whole different story. - It was a whole different story. - [Sharon] Wonderful, wonderful. - And not only for us, I mean.-- - [Jackie] I was in tears through the entire thing. I really was and I didn't expect that, I didn't. I didn't expect that, I didn't expect that. - Let's just talk more about that day. - [Jackie] Our son and daughter-in-law came virtually my whole Sacramento staff and some of my LA staff came. And an important family to us which are the O'Briens, who lived in San Francisco. Because Trudy O'Brien a Filipino American and her Anglo husband. And I knew them in, at UC Berkeley. And when they were married, of course it was not too long after they're older than I am. Not too long after it was okay for people of different races to get married. But I had to pose as Brian's wife for them to get an apartment. Because if they saw her they wouldn't have rented to them. And she comes and couple of their daughters come and so they were there. - And that was very important. 'Cause it reminded us of the fact that it wasn't all that long ago that people of different races couldn't marry. - Right. - And of 50 years ago. - And California was ahead of the.-- - Oh yeah right - Exactly, exactly. But we had forgotten that you know. We hadn't really realized that. And some how that was an important story. - We all went out for lunch beforehand and then we walked from where we had lunch. - But remember the lunch, remember that people were coming to the table with flowers. - [Jackie] No I wasn't at your lunch. - Oh oh, oh you went.-- - [Jackie] I went, I had lunch with my staff. - [Sharon] and the staff. We had lunch before the, the women who had flown up from LA. And there were people at the table, some of them were just taking the flowers, you know out of the base on the table. But people we never even seen before and not gay people. Were coming over and saying, how wonderful. Here can we buy you know, a bottle of wine for the table? We're so happy for you. It was quite unexpected for the political statement that everybody thought they were making. - So we're up on the hill at some restaurant, walking distance from City Hall in San Francisco. And we troop down as a troop you know, with our flowers in our hand. Looked like a Greek wedding or something through the streets you know. (laughing) But even then it still hadn't hit me, it really didn't. It wasn't until we were actually standing, facing each other. And there was someone officiating and saying words that I thought in my lifetime I would never say. - To be your lawfully, wedded spouse. - [Sharon] That's right. - That's what I said. And I thought the word lawfully, I saw you know, it's a funny thing you'd think oh, there's no other better words you know, words your before lawfully wedded. Not words that were ever.-- - [Jackie] No, no, no, not at all. And we, because it was so horridly. We raced out and got wedding rings and, which we're still wearing, which you'll put on our fingers again. (laughing) - [Sheila] Excellent, excellent. And I was you know, our son and daughter-in-law were both really moved and I mean everybody.-- - Everybody was.-- - Who, everybody was really moved by it. - So you started to say after I mean, here's a political statement until the moment that it happened. Then what was the feeling, I mean you can describe it? - It's hard to say, I mean it really is hard to say. I just felt acknowledged, publicly acknowledged. That our relationship, that our love, that our family. That our lifetime together really is adult, a whole adult lifetimes have been spent together. That it was acknowledged publicly. And I remember personally thinking about something I had said on the floor of the assembly. Which is, I don't care if you ever acknowledge me and my right to do this. But I do insist that you give me equal rights before the law. And at that moment that we were done. I remember thinking about saying BS. (laughing) - You did want to acknowledge. - I do wanna be acknowledged, absolutely. But I, at the time I said it I meant it. Because I didn't really think I cared one way or the other. And it was at that moment I knew I did care. I did care about being publicly acknowledged that our family was a real family. Like every other real family. - I think that's what you begin. Well, first of all it was so much, so full of joy. - She said were eyes tearing up again. - I know, I know. And I think you know, that day I mean it was.-- - We were, we were. - So joyful and so emotional. (laughs) Because we hadn't expected to be able to do it. - Yeah, it's true, wasn't on the radar. - And then to do it. In that beautiful place. With you and with our friends. It was a public coming out, I mean what can you say? That's what it was. And like you, in a funny kind of way you don't know what you're missing until you have it. And in a funny kind of way it's like I was speaking to that anxiety about what could happen. Well, once domestic partnership went into place, that went away and in a way here once we had that public recognition. Somehow that feeling of, yes we too can get married. Yes we too are equal, yes we too are.-- - Normal, normal human beings. - Regular folk who have the same needs, and desires and loves as everybody else on the planet. - If they were lucky. - That hits you and I think that's what, that's what I felt that day. It was like, yes here we are. Isn't it wonderful for all of us? - Well, I think that's what struck the whole city. I mean it was quite extraordinary. Everybody was grinning from ear to ear. The garbage guys you know, I mean it was an amazing time. That's what struck me as well. It was not only the joy of the people who were and their families. Because weddings are a joyful time and you celebrate. And I think people know what to do when you're having a wedding, you know what I mean? - [Jackie] Yes. (indistinct) Yes. All. - To celebrate, they know there to be there everybody dresses up, et cetera. But it was interesting to me how joyful the city was. - Absolutely. Like this city is the home to love and joy as today. Never gonna be ashamed to be in an incredibly.-- - [Sharon] Absolutely corks, oh yes everywhere you went, the hotels, absolutely. - People who weren't gonna get married, people who aren't gay, et cetera. Just everybody was so proud of themselves for doing the right thing. You know for doing a just thing. - There was joy in the city, I totally agree. It was like the whole city went up, lifted somehow. - [Sheila] And then when you got home you said, you started to talk about.-- - Well, it was the most remarkable thing. I mean, I expected people to congratulate us at home as the news got out. And it got out 'cause we were on the cover of some publication together. (laughing) - [Sheila] That was good. - Yes, yes. And then what happened was this barrage of hostility, and anger from my friends and our friends who said, why weren't we there? Why weren't we invited? Why didn't you tell us? We would've come and then.-- - [Sheila] Now you know what straight people go through with their wedding? - [Sharon] Yes, yes. - And then we got some, a few gifts from people. - Like the other thing though. - Like I told tool the other day that she didn't have to send the gift cause she already done it. - And the other thing is that you would tell me, you would go to various places and you'd be in the elevator, remember? - Yes. - And then people would suddenly start congratulating you. - Yes, yeah people I didn't you know. - But oftentimes they were members of the tribe so to speak, - Yeah. - But we wouldn't know that until this moment. - Oh yeah. - Right. - And then somebody would just beam and smile and say congratulations - Yeah - And you know exactly. - For more than a year cuz I actually, at some point started to actually keep track for more than a year not one day, seven days a week not one day went by without someone congratulating me. - Yeah. - Not one day and I thought. - It's almost like it's pint up. - Yeah. - I think it is. - You know that people have been wanting to, but you can't say congratulations, you've been together for 20 years and we've known you for 20 years, but we wanted to say congratulations again. - Yeah. - You know people don't really, there's nothing to trigger there. - Well we didn't even had a 25th anniversary party. - Right, right. - A really big bash with family and friends I mean it was a big big event, and even that didn't elicit the same level of of congratulatory remarks and beaming smiles and slaps on the back and ride ons and we're so happy for you. Because I think people knew that that was a 25th anniversary of us being together, but not of a, of a marriage. - Right, - Right. - Not of a, not of any, as you keep saying, and it's true not of anything that they knew how to relate to. - Right. - I mean, it was, you know, you picked the day, you moved in together into a house that you bought so what you know roommates do that. - And 25 years is of course something to celebrate. - Yeah. - But. - 29 Now. - Okay now - Yeah. - The Supreme court says, nevermind - Yeah. - This is not a marriage. - Right. - And essentially an old all of those marriages, How did you feel? - Oh, I was very unhappy I'm not surprised - No. - But I was very unhappy, In fact, we were so unhappy we didn't ask for our money back when San Francisco offered to send us our money back, we decided we weren't gonna take our money back cuz we still kept our marriage certificate. - But even though they took it back, I think, well, it was so clearly the beginning of the struggle in a very aggressive kind of way. And didn't seem to me, it was gonna end there so you know, obviously we're here today because of all the work that's been done for 20, 30 years but you know, that was sort of the, the coming out for that idea that just was gonna continue to push and push and push and did, and here we are. So in the back of my mind, I was very hopeful that something would actually happen. - She was hopeful and I didn't think it was gonna happen. - Well, it's interesting to me, I don't know that people know very much about the geography of the city of San Francisco, but the California Supreme court building is across from the city hall where the couples were lined up in the rain with their families, with their children, with their parents getting marriage licenses four years ago. - Oh - You must have. - Might have had an impact. - You must have wondered, I mean some of the Supreme court justices have gay clerks and it's often been the case that if you know one, - Yeah. - You feel like, oh, well I guess all those attitudes I had about them, aren't quite true. - Because. - Really don't have horns in a tale. - Right, I mean, but even more benign than that you know. - Yes. - But there, the couples that I knew said they were, they were very surprised at the joy they felt being married and how it deepened their feeling about their relationship somehow I don't know whether that's the right way to describe it. But in that same way they were very, more disappointed than they expected to be when they heard. - I was. - Yeah we were disappointed. - Disappointed. - We talked about it for some time, in fact I can tell you we were married four months in three days so. (laughing) - Well that means something that he of course knew that. - Yeah. - So we work and we work and we work and Mark Leno brings the marriage bill and it passes it's that same kind of struggle, you know, in the assembly, by the skin of their teeth they get the you know the last right right. Goes down to governor Schwarzenegger and he vetoes it so we don't have marriage, - Right. but couples bring the cases. And I think everybody knows the story now. - Right. Goes through the courts and up to the Supreme court and pretty, I won't say a conservative court but a very mildly conservative court. - It's a pretty conservative court, [All] almost all Republicans appointed by Republicans, governors, peruse the state constitution and very interesting in terms of what chief, the chief justice who normally seeing who the justices are in the majority, - Right. - has the privilege of appointing the person to write the opinion. - Right. - Right. - And chief justice, George appointed himself, - Yeah. - And the interesting thing on the law, which I think could eventually lead the United States Supreme court, but it has to change a lot from the people that are on it now - Truly. - to look in the same way looked at two entirely separate strands of constitutional law. One of them is equal protection, - Right? - where you can't treat people who are similarly situated differently, unless you've got a very good reason. And then this whole other kind of silo in the constitution which is about fundamental rights. - Right. - And how you can't deny people, fundamental rights without a very good reason, but there're two separate silos, all of them with standards articulated by the United States Supreme court. And, drawing that case through both of those silos and saying under the California constitution, they violated equal protection and they violated, - Right. - due process. - I, that was, I was surprised by the second - Was really well, it's an argument that's been put forward for a long time, - Yeah. - but it's like, they completely locked up discrimination against us in the State. Not this was not only about marriage. - Oh yeah, no, I know. - This said you can't like race like gender, - Right. - you cannot discriminate as a state or public body against people on the basis of their sexual orientation without the most compelling reason. And we can't imagine what that would be. - Right. - So. - It was really quite pretty. - Amazing. - Pretty amazing so where were you when the, - when the, - We were in Hawaii - In Hawaii - Mawi. (laughing) - It must've been fun. - Did you, did you get a phone call? - Oh. We got phone calls, emails we got everything along. - And one of our dear friends lives there and she's a lesbian so she called us and announced, - Yeah. - You know, she told us the news cuz she had heard it on the local television, so we all celebrated together there. - Well, it was pretty extraordinary - I heard. - Heard the state Senate two things one is my staffer who worked on all the civil rights bills not only the gay bills, but people disabilities, gender, et cetera. - Right. - Had bet me 50 bucks that there would not be legal marriage equality in California before I was termed out of the legislature. - Oh. - And so I'm almost termed out. - Yes. - But she came to work that day before we knew what the decision was gonna be with a crisp $50 bill and her fingers crossed. - Because that was a bet she wanted to lose and they were supposed to announce the decision at 10 o'clock and we were on the floor of the Senate and we have very slow computers on the floor of the Senate. - And of course the, you know, the, the decision was about 150 pages long. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And so we're trying to read it page by page How did it turn out? It's like, you can't go to the end of the book on your computer, you know, like just flip it over and say - Right. - Therefore. - There it is. - So all of these democratic members are, I mean, it was so unifying it was just amazing they're all standing behind me at the computer going no, push this button, you know, push this button. - Make it go fast. - What is it? What is it? We're all on our phones and everything and when we heard the decision had been, you know, had come out the way it did again, there was people came over to hug me. - Yeah. You know, it's like, let's hug Sheila I mean, I'm not even getting married. (laughing) I don't. - But. - It was they were so happy that the equality had happened. - Yes, yes. - I mean that, I think is where a lot of the. - I, I agree entirely a world. I think people are in the, on the whole, in the main, in this country are happy when equality habits. - Right. - I do believe that. - And my sister told me an interesting story, cuz she's gonna come out for the wedding Sunday and she's a docent for the Art Institute in Chicago or the Architectural Society in Chicago. - So she was supposed to give a tour on the river there and she sent out a notice to all the other people and said you know, my sister's getting married in California due to the recent California law, will someone please take over. And for me, and she said, she was amazed at all the emails that came through in Illinois of people who said, oh, absolutely. I'm so sorry I can't do it. But why doesn't Illinois do something like this? Why is Illinois so backwards and not doing this? We support this tell your sister congratulations, we're so happy for you she said she was just astounded. - Yeah. - Across the country. - There is it a feeling. - We went to the East LA office of the county of Los Angeles to get our marriage license and the only Anglo in line there. And we got our license and were just getting ready to leave and all these young Latinos and Latinos who were in line to get their marriage licenses all said to us, ride on and congratulations and we're really happy for you. And it's about time and it was very heartwarming, I can't think of another word it was really warmed my heart to see people cuz we didn't turn to them and say, yay, we got it. We were just quietly walking out the door, but they knew what we were doing and they expressed their support, and their joy and their sentiment. And so we're gonna have a little wedding on Sunday, - Yes. - Won't be big cuz it'll be in my living room our living room, - Right. - and then we're gonna have another big reception in October cuz that's when we celebrate our wedding, our anniversary. So we figured we couldn't get it together right now it'd be too hard to do those Claire. - Yes. - Sure. - But we decided to be June brides. - Yes. - So I, I guess the sort of the, the last question I haven't gotten my any time signal or anything, we've got plenty of time but it really goes to you know, your lives have melded politics, sort of the personal is the political. - No, definitely. - This has been one of the best examples in a way, although you don't set out to go, I'm getting married and it's political. But tell me what you think this might mean sort of in the larger context, not just about our community I'm not even sure what the question means, but just philosophically this conversation about people feeling joy because this happened. - I think that any time equal opportunity and equal rights is pushed to a new group of people are pushed further for a different same group of people. There are those who have resisted it and just hate it and are gonna go to their death just angry about it. But there's a whole other strata that's not involved that just are observers who smile and say one for the good guys, one for the good guys cuz I do think there are awful lot of Americans and an awful lot of Californians who do believe that our lives are interconnected. And that when somebody's being oppressed or drowned trodden or denied equal rights or whatever that it does affect them. And I think that they feel that I really do, and I think that, I think that the general outpouring, I mean the coverage and the local newspapers and on television you couldn't have asked for any better coverage. I mean, the coverage was so sympathetic and so warm and so loving because, you know, if they wanted to, you know, and I know they could have, could have looked pretty idiotic and stupid and dumb but they didn't do that. It was really warm and really caring and really loving and I thought, you know, I think people do find joy when oppression is given a punch in the stomach. - Well, it's sort of this full circle of this show in a way you talk about coming together the first time you met, you wanted to do something to make the world fairer in a way. - Absolutely. - I mean, you are talking about school integration. - Right. - And you know. - Civil rights. - Ground that's what brown versus board of education. - Right. - We know it well - Right. - Not separate but equal. - That's right. - That's really getting the same education, having the same chance. - Which we're a long way off from. - We are a long way off partly because, I mean you were, we were busing then we're still having this. Is it enough? Just to put people together. - oh no, we didn't - It was we don't bus. - Right. - Exactly. - We don't we only bus when we need overcrowding. We're. - Talking about your own. - Yeah. - Because you were not bitter about it, you were happy when something fairer happened. - Yes. - It seems to me that we're sort of going through the same thing. - Yeah, I think so too. - So just in the two minutes that are left, how do you feel about your impending wedding? Does it feel special I mean? - Oh, totally. - You got married before. - Well, yes, but we actually didn't have as much time to plan it before actually to be honest with you. - Two days. - We did it we just said okay, we're doing it and we had a, you know, get up to San Francisco and Jackie was in the legislature it was all that kind of shuffling schedules. But now we actually had a little bit more time to plan a ceremony and to-- - I've been a little-- - Think about it. - I've been a little nervous about it so I have put off doing anything about it until today. (laughing) Except for getting the lights. - She was afraid she was gonna get so emotional she would be paralyzed. - Yeah, I really did, I really did cuz I was taken by surprise by how emotional I got in San Francisco and this time is the real McCoy so I thought-- - We're all gonna be a Washington. - So I thought, I'm not gonna do anything about it at all, I'm just not gonna think about it, I'm gonna pretend it doesn't exist, I'm gonna go about and take care of other business. And then today I started trying put together some thoughts and some downloading some things that I had in my files and looking up other things and-- - Reading poems. - I wrote a ketubah for two women today. - Excellent. - Yes and well stealing heavily from the website. - Everybody else of course. - Exactly. - Well, I can't tell you how happy I am that you were on the show and to share all of this it's because your history is really the history of the movement toward merit. - 29 years. - We did that 29 years. - And I'm happy that you were along for the ride as it were you'll be at Jackie and Sharon's wedding not on the camera I guess, unfortunately, but you can think about them and I guess America we've got same sex marriage and you better just get used to it. (upbeat music)