Lots of beautiful, legal weddings, and a funeral.

My paternal grandmother's funeral was this morning. I went up mostly just to keep my Dad and aunt company - my grandmother's mind had gone a decade and more ago, and this was just the burial of the body.

Still, I figured that while I was up during the week, I'd swing by SF City Hall. I'd read a lot of lovely things on the web about people from all over the nation sending flowers to the couples waiting in line, and I made some boutonnieres up (because not everyone wants a bouquet) and headed over after the post-funeral family breakfast.

So I made some boutonnieres.


And then I went to City Hall.


There were lots of people there supporting gay marriage.


All kinds of support.


And, um, the usual freaks. His sign says something about "Alien Petiable Abductions."


These girls came over from Davis High to support the couples.


This family took their kids out of school to teach them about standing up for what you believe in.


People sent flowers. This was the second of three deliveries I saw over a two-hour period, all equally enormous.


More flowers. The third delivery. But where were the couples?


There wasn't a line. Apparently, there was a line of about 300 people on Friday, and the Hall stayed open until seven in the evening (according to one couple I talked to, who waited nine hours to get their license and came back today for the ceremony.) But not today - there was a steady trickle of couples arriving and leaving, but the line that we all saw in press photos is no longer there.

Every time a couple came out (about every 20 minutes), everyone took multiple photos and congratulated them. At one point in the day, the directors of the SF Lesbian Choir and the SF Gay Men's Chorus (?) got married, and everyone kept making mistakes and congratulating the singers. Hee. In this picture, you can see some of those flowers that went in coming out. All the couples that wanted flowers got a bouquet (one for each of them, if they wanted.)


But I took pictures of the couples who took boutonnieres...at least, the ones who stayed still for me.


Awww.


Awww.



So, to sum up: There are no longer long lines for marriage licenses - couples get appointments now. The news networks are still there - I got interviewed by someone from the Washington Post and babbled something inane about "amazing acts of civil disobedience" until she noticed my hands were shaking. Business as usual is starting to set back in, though - there was a protest about street violence in the African American community taking up most of the steps the whole time I was there, and another one about Schwarzenegger was moving in as I left. The flowers are still pouring in, however, and I probably saw three times as many flowers go in to City Hall as I saw come out in the two hours I was there.

I would suggest, therefore, that if you were thinking of sending flowers, you look at some other action instead.

• Join the California Freedom to Marry Coalition (I met the women on the homepage and their son at City Hall today, very nice).
  
• Donate to Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization that has been working for gay marriage for years. From their website:

  Lambda Legal carries out its legal work principally through test cases selected for the likelihood of their success in establishing positive legal precedents that will affect lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, the transgendered, and people with HIV or AIDS. From our offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and Dallas, Lambda Legal's staff of attorneys works on a wide range of cases, with our docket averaging over 50 cases at any given time.

  When these marriages go to court, and they will, Lambda Legal will almost certainly be there, fighting the good fight.
  
• Write to the county clerk in your area and ask them to consider granting marriage licenses to gay couples. Maybe it will work, maybe not. All you can do is try.