Marry Me!
Make no mistake about it — same-sex marriage is an American revolution in the making.
The spark was lit by San Francisco's heterosexual, Irish Catholic Mayor -- the recently elected Gavin Newsom.
His act of defiance set off a daisy chain of events that put same-sex marriage on the nation's agenda and landed him on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Correspondent Bob Simon reports.
Thanks to Gavin Newsom, Rosie O'Donnell was able to whisper "I do," along with nearly 4,000 other gay and lesbian couples, all of whom got themselves to the church on time.
The church is the rotunda at San Francisco's city hall, where the sound of wedding bells can be heard all over the world. There were plenty of brides and plenty of grooms — but they weren't marrying each other. The only thing missing from this scene was Batman proclaiming, "Holy Matrimony, Robin."
But not everyone is amused. In fact, many people are horrified, including Randy Thomasson, head of "Campaign for California Families," which has emerged as the state's most outspoken voice against same-sex marriage.
"I think I was as shocked as most people were, because this was now out of the closet and all over the TV screen. And then, night after night, day after day, it was in your face," says Thomasson.
"And this was not just shocking. This angered and actually disgusted a lot of parents and grandparents who didn't want that being pushed into their living rooms every day."
Is same-sex marriage offending the sanctity of marriage? Thomasson believes it is.
"If you don't have a man and a woman in marriage, you don't have marriage. That's what marriage is. Yes, it's a sacred institution. It's a natural institution. It's a historic institution. We are going on a very dangerous slope if we legally explode the definition of marriage," says Thomasson.
"Right now, marriage is for a man and a woman. That's the law in America. Mayor Newsom wants to change that to say marriage is if you love one another … He's acting like he is God and king and now dictator of California."
Gavin Newsom may not be God or king or dictator, but he's certainly a hero to the gays of San Francisco.
In office for less than two months, Newsom, 36, not only took on California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the president of the United States.
"It became crystal clear to me that I needed to do something about this, when I went back East and saw the president of the United States give The State of the Union," says Newsom.
At his State of the Union speech, Bush said: "A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."
"It became clear to me at that point, at literally the last waning minutes of that speech, that the president was ready to support a constitutional amendment that, from my perspective, was going to be divisive," says Newsom.
"At that moment, I felt 100 percent compelled and 100 percent secure in my belief that I had to be consistent with the oath of office to begin to provide marriage licenses in a non-discriminatory manner here in San Francisco."
Who is this political novice, this whippersnapper who thinks he can challenge the president? You might think Newsom's a flaming liberal, but the irony is, when he ran for mayor, he was the establishment candidate, the candidate of big money. He didn't even win the gay vote.
"He was most conservative candidate when he was running for mayor. It's not a question of being liberal," says former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown of his protégé and handpicked successor.
Is it a flamboyant move?
"Not for Gavin. It's a pretty flamboyant move when we all stand back and look at it. Because no one else had ever ventured into that wilderness," says Brown. "But then, if you know the nature of Gavin Newsom, you would know that he would never see it as anything flamboyant. He would see it only as the appropriate thing to do -- to protect someone's right."
Was Newsom just looking for name recognition, fame or prominence?
"I don't think so. I think Gavin Newsom is far more careful in his political moves than that when he considers them in light of what will happen politically," says Brown.
Did Mayor Newsom have any idea of what was going to happen?
"I'll tell you, I thought for a moment about the politics of this, but I didn't like the conclusion," says Newsom, who's now a national figure. "People like me come and go. I mean, one thing I am is a reasonable student of politics. In history, people come and go; principles transcend."
Even if he does "come and go," many gays and lesbians are now entitled to the more than 1,000 benefits that only marriage guarantees.
Why is marriage so important? Why aren't civil unions enough?
"The ultimate affirmation of life," says Newsom. "I remember Aristotle said, 'You can't live a good life in an unjust society.' And I think there's tremendous injustice when we deny the rights of 40-plus million Americans the same rights that my wife and me have. That's wrong. And I can't feel, in any way, shape or form, that my marriage is as whole when I'm denying the same rights that I have, as a married man, to millions and millions of Americans."
Kay Ryan and Carol Adair invited 60 Minutes II into their home in the suburbs of San Francisco for Sunday lunch with their family. Carol, an English teacher at a local college and Kay, a teacher and poet, are lesbians. They've lived together a long time, and they've been married for just three weeks.
Along with hundreds of other gays, they stood in the rain for several hours waiting to get inside the rotunda at San Francisco's city hall. It's where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe got married 50 years ago. You can bet money that Carol and Kay's marriage will last longer than Joe and Marilyn's.
They've been together for 25 years. Why did they decide to get married?
"My marriage, it's my center. It's the core of who I am as a human being," says Carol. "It's the base that you turn back to."
What was it like to raise kids as a gay couple?
"My grandchildren, they're beautiful. They're beautiful and strong and able children, and I'm very close with them," says Carol. "I think people who are raised in homes that are slightly non-traditional are more flexible. And flexible people are strong. Rigid people are weak. People who can bend and look and think, they have a better time finding their own ethical center. I think it's good for them."
But you can't do a story on same-sex marriages in San Francisco without visiting the Castro, the city's overwhelmingly gay neighborhood.
Not every gay person in the Castro was ready to take the plunge into marriage — many preferred their alternative lifestyle. But most said they were ready to fight for the right to marry.
A few decades ago, marriage was as far from the minds of gays as celibacy. Hardly a person gave it a thought. But come to the Castro today, and you'll see how much the conversation has changed.
Marriage seems to be on everybody's mind these days. But let's not forget the immortal words of that incomparable philosopher, Mae West. "Marriage," she said, "is a great institution but I'm not ready for an institution."
Turns out, neither are a lot of other people.
"I think gay people will be the last people left in America who believe in marriage," says Frank Rich, a columnist for the New York Times who has been observing and writing about the gay rights struggle since the 1980s.
"I first became interested in this story during the height of the AIDS crisis, which sort of opened my eyes as a straight person standing outside it. And worrying that gay friends of mine could not visit dying partners in their hospital rooms," says Rich.
"They couldn't get the same health benefits that I would be entitled to as a married person. They didn't have the rights of survivorship on social security. And I think that what happened was that horrible epidemic kind of brought this inequality of marriage out into the open."
But opponents of same-sex marriage are angry that one young and brash mayor of a city known for gay activism could so easily bring about such a sudden and radical change in the culture. That's why many conservatives are lining up behind the president in supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Thomasson speaks for them when he says that Mayor Newsom is breaking the law and ought to be jailed.
"I would say that if Mayor Newsom gets his way with the abolition of the man/woman requirement in marriage, down the line maybe when I've got gray hairs and maybe other people are gone, children could be marrying older men. Number of partners could number three or four in a marriage," says Thomasson. "You see, if they say they all love each other, why not according to the standards of Mayor Newsom."
"Tired, stale rhetoric, I've heard it for generations," says Newsom. "I mean it's absurd, utterly absurd, as the arguments are about polygamy. There was a gentleman out there the other day with a tree saying, 'Why can't I marry this tree?' I mean, it's just laughable. We're talking about two human beings."
60 Minutes II decided to go back to the home of Carol and Kay and their untraditional traditional family.
"The fact is that today, polls show that most Americans do not believe in same-sex marriage. They believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. What can the two of you say to convince these Americans that they're wrong," Simon asks the couple.
"Simply more exposure to faces like ours, ordinary lives like ours, seeing this on television in their own home," says Kay. "And seeing that we just flat don't look scary. And that we're really not more interesting than they are will make the difference and should make the difference."