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Marriage Equality Walks the Golden Gate Bridge

Posted by: Lez Get Real on September 27, 2010.

Melanie Nathan – September 27, 2010:-

San Francisco:- The march across the bridge has been an annual event and now as profound as ever, gays and lesbians and (LGBTQI) reconvened this past Sunday. Activists chanted “It gets better.”

Molly McKay – founder of Marriage Equality USA; has been at the helm of this and almost all of the protests and rallies for marriage equality in San Francisco, including the California proposition 8 journey, to this point, drawing large crowds and providing a voice well-heard.

On her FaceBook page today McKay noted:

Molly McKay ” Thank you Sean for documenting our fantastic experience raising visibility and awareness across the Golden Gate bridge – I personally talked to people from China, South Carolina, The Netherlands, Texas, Germany, Korea and Spain as well as the locals who cheered us on – thanks to all for making it a success!!”

Beginning in February 2001, McKay and her wife, Dr. Davina Kotulski, began going to city halls in the Bay Area asking for marriage licenses and organizing annual “Marriage License Counter” protests to draw attention to the hundreds of rights same-sex couples are denied. In the United States marriage licenses are commonly issued at the local city hall, or office of government for the municipality, with a city employee on one side of a counter, and the applicant on the other side. In response to having her San Francisco Marriage License invalidated, McKay joined her wife Kotulski in organizing the “Marriage Equality Express,” an educational bus tour across the United States that culminated in the first national marriage equality rally in Washington, DC on October 11, 2004. Time and Parade magazines included the rally when citing the importance of marriage equality activism as one of the top 10 issues of 2004. Molly McKay co-founded Marriage Equality USA in 1996, along with several other activists, and continues to her work with them to this day.

When Marriage Equality California merged with Equality California in 2004, McKay led the Marriage Equality Project for the joint organization becoming Equality California’s Field Director.^[3] McKay eventually left the organization in 2006 to rejoin Marriage Equality California’s prior parent organization Marriage Equality USA.