The mayor at the time, Gavin Newsom, had directed the county clerk to approve homosexual marriages even though there was no law on the books recognizing them. His act of rebellion prompted a bipartisan political backlash, but Kamala Harris, a newly-elected District Attorney, had no hesitation.
“You could tell she was so overwhelmed and had so much joy about performing this ceremony," said Brad Witherspoon, whose marriage to Raymond Cobane was officiated by Harris on Valentine's Day 2004.
In her book, “The Truths We Hold,” Harris writes that her decision to officiate the weddings was spur-of-the-moment. She was on her way to the airport before she decided to stop by City Hall. She and other local officials were sworn in and performed marriages in “every nook and cranny" of the building, Harris recalled.
“I was delighted to be a part of it,” she wrote.
All the marriages performed during that month in San Francisco were invalidated later that year, a move that Harris described as “devastating.”
The issue of gay marriage resurfaced when Harris ran for California attorney general in 2010, just two years after the state’s voters banned same-sex unions with Proposition 8.
Harris said she would not defend Proposition 8 as the state’s top law enforcement officer.
The U.S. Supreme Court eventually overturned Proposition 8 in 2013.
