#y'all I just wanted to write Wrightworth fanfiction I didn't expect to learn this very scary and depressing part of LGBT history

[someoneintheshadow456]

Y'all I was doing research for my Ace Attorney fanfic on which were the first places to legalise gay marriage because my story is set in the 2000s and I wanted to make sure it was accurate.

I also remembered that a lot of BL/GL anime of the time period used "marriage in San Francisco" as a plot point (like how "divorce in Reno" was in ye olde Hollywood), because San Francisco was one of the first places to issue same-sex marriage licenses in the USA. Massachusetts luckily legalised gay marriage in May of 2004, a little bit after San Francisco did. But for some reason the San Francisco one was better known internationally. So I wanted to see if that was actually accurate and googled it...

Found the Wikipedia article and came across this:

The San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings took place between February 12 and March 11, 2004, after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and a number of interest groups sued to end the practice. About 4,000 such licenses were issued before the California Supreme Court ordered a halt to the practice on March 11. On August 12, 2004, the California Supreme Court voided all of the licenses that had been issued in February and March.

For additional context San Francisco City Hall looked like THIS for those two months, there were queues going on for miles. And it wouldn't be implausible if foreign LGBT couples came to America to marry upon hearing the news. In fact, such a thing STILL happens even to this day:

Imagine finally being able to get married after YEARS of persecution, waiting in mile long queues to get your license, maybe you and your spouse even flew thousands of miles to do this... only for said license to be rendered null and void in six months, out of the blue... all because of political lobbying. 4000 marriage certificates... rendered about as good as toilet paper. In the span of six months. 4000 people's hopes... dashed.

I would have been too young and living too far away to know about this when it happened. But older LGBT people living in the area may be able to actually attest to it, maybe they were even one of the 4000 people affected. And actually, I'm wondering if perhaps the numbers were downplayed.

This... still haunts me. The fact that you could have your marriage license taken away like that... legitimately horrifying.

#y'all I just wanted to write Wrightworth fanfiction I didn't expect to learn this very scary and depressing part of LGBT history #THANK GOD masachussets was there #but a lot of people couldn't afford a plane ticket or to travel that far... #thank GOD things have gotten a little better #if ONLY those BL/GL writers KNEW...