‘Mad rush’ to marry looms

With the issuance of state-sanctioned marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning Tuesday, plans for ceremonies and celebrations are being made across California, but especially in Laguna Beach, where a large and active gay population has been waiting for this moment for years.

Many of the couples have been together for decades, and already have taken steps to formalize their unions, through domestic partnerships and other measures.

“We’re over the moon,” said Rik Lawrence of his planned nuptials with 25-year partner Kevin Scott. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Lawrence and Scott are planning to go to Los Angeles City Hall next week for their ceremony, officiated by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. They will be one of possibly hundreds of couples seeking his services. Lawrence says if they are married en masse along with many others, so much the better. Villaraigosa will return from China on Wednesday, and Lawrence hopes the ceremony can take place before the end of next week.

“We would feel we are enjoying the God-given right every straight couple enjoys,” Lawrence said. “It’s a very personal and political statement. My heart and mind have been lighter since the Supreme Court decision.”

Other couples are heading to San Francisco, which started the gay-marriage ball rolling by granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004 — licenses that were nullified by the courts.

Casting a pall over the nuptials is the impending November vote on a constitutional amendment that would outlaw same-sex marriages in the state. Some believe that using the marriage rights now in force will help persuade voters that a same-sex marriage ban isn’t necessary.

“The more of us who take on the responsibility of marriage, the more acceptance,” Lawrence said. “Between now and November, many feelings will change. It’s time.”

‘No one can take it away’

Lagunan Stu Byer isn’t wasting any time — he’s planning to marry longtime partner Jeff Rehm first thing Tuesday morning at the Laguna Hills county office.

Byer made the appointment weeks ago, deciding that taking advantage of the marriage opportunity makes sense in light of the November vote.

“We’re getting it done just in case the constitutional amendment passes,” Byer said. “If it passes, it would be tough to apply retroactively [to married couples], so I feel pretty secure. No one can take it away.”

Rehm and Byer, together for 18 years, have already registered as domestic partners.

“We’ve done everything we could to formalize and legalize our relationship,” Byer said. “Getting married was a no-brainer.”

Byer will make it a family affair, with his mother attending.

Rehm, a psychologist, doesn’t think a marriage license will change their relationship.

“After 18 years, we’re pretty solid,” Rehm said. Still, he is clearly overwhelmed by the elation over the new right to marry. “It’s hard to believe it’s actually happened.”

For Byer and Rehm, a honeymoon will wait until the couple finishes remodeling their North Laguna home in October. Then they plan to have a formal religious ceremony with a rabbi, and plan to host a slew of family and friends from the Midwest and East Coast.

‘On the precipice’

Former Laguna Beach Mayor Bob Gentry — who made history by becoming the first openly gay elected official in Orange County in the 1980s — plans to marry his longtime partner Dennis on June 20 in Indio.

Gentry, 69, is very aware of the history that will be made this week.

“I am thrilled that the Supreme Court took the same action in 2008 that it took in 1948 when it lifted the ban on interracial marriage,” Gentry said. “I’m not just excited because I’m a gay man, but because the state recognizes the need for continued activity in civil rights. It’s been 60 years, a long and horrendous 60 years for us, with discrimination in jobs and housing, and AIDS, and now we are at the precipice of full civil rights.”

Gentry believes that once the door is opened in California — the nation’s most populous state — then full federal marriage rights will soon follow.

Gentry says that many of his friends are in “a mad rush” to marry, and the demand is so great in the Palm Springs area for same-sex marriage licenses that a special staff person has been assigned to handle the crush.

Ironically, the Gentrys — Dennis changed his last name to Bob’s nine years ago — are not planning a big wedding reception afterward.

“To us, the political statement is more important than a party,” Bob said. “We’ve done that — party — for 18 years.”

CINDY FRAZIER is city editor of the Coastline Pilot. She can be contacted at (949) 494-2087 or [email protected].