David Knight, son of the state senator who was the author of the
California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage, defied his father's
law and wed his partner of 10 years Tuesday in a quiet ceremony attended by
just two friends in San Francisco City Hall.
Atop the grand staircase of City Hall's rotunda, Knight and Joe Lazzaro
of Baltimore exchanged rings and were pronounced spouses for life one month
after Sen. William "Pete" Knight, R-Palmdale, proclaimed San Francisco's same-
sex marriages "nothing more than a sideshow."
The younger Knight and Lazzaro joined the growing ranks of couples --
more than 3,700 -- who have wed in San Francisco since Mayor Gavin Newsom on
Feb. 12 ordered the city to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian
couples.
Knight and Lazzaro said the ceremony Tuesday reaffirmed the commitment
they had made two years ago in a civil union ceremony in Vermont. "Vermont was
the big deal," Knight said. "That was our real commitment. This is to be part
of what's happening across the country."
Civil unions, such as those adopted by the state of Vermont in 2000, are
legal partnerships recognized by the state and conferring most of the legal
benefits of marriage including the right to share title on a house, file joint
state tax returns, sue for wrongful death and make decisions on behalf of
their partner in the event of a medical emergency.
The difference between the Vermont civil union and the San Francisco
marriage, Knight said, is that "although Vermont recognizes the 400 or so
rights granted by that state, if we lived in Vermont, we'd have those, but
we'd still lack the thousand or so rights a married couple, a heterosexual
couple, receives from the federal government."
Knight's father did not attend either ceremony in Vermont or San
Francisco. He did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Benjamin Lopez, legislative director and lobbyist for the Traditional
Values Coalition, a gay rights foe based in Orange County, said both civil
unions and same-sex marriages cheapened the institution of marriage between a
man and a woman.
"David Knight isn't just thumbing his nose at Pete Knight," Lopez said.
"David Knight is thumbing his nose at all of California. California said Pete
Knight is right in 2000."
The senator's Proposition 22, which says, "Only marriage between a man
and a woman is valid or recognized in California," passed with 61.4 percent of
the vote in 2000. It is now the cornerstone of the legal argument that San
Francisco is breaking state law by allowing the weddings to go forward.
A recent statewide Field Poll found 50 percent of those surveyed
disapproved of same-sex marriage, while 44 percent were in favor. The survey
reflected growing acceptance of same-sex marriage over the past two decades.
Sen. Knight once said, "Two people of the same sex are not a family. They're
not normal."
"Joe is my family," the younger Knight said Tuesday while waiting for
their marriage certificate at the county clerk's counter. "And my blood family
that has accepted me is my family."
Knight, a shy 42-year-old cabinetmaker and former Air Force fighter pilot,
broke his long silence on his father's politics in 2000 to denounce Prop. 22
and talk about the pain it caused his family. He had told his father about six
years earlier that he is gay.
He and Lazzaro, a 39-year-old interior architect, flew into San Francisco
on Monday night for their marriage appointment at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Wearing dark suits and matching red rose boutonnieres, a gift from
Lazzaro's mother, the men faced each other and tightly held hands as deputy
marriage commissioner Donald Bird performed the ceremony written for same-sex
couples.
The rings they exchanged were the same rings they had made for their
Vermont ceremony, where they were surrounded by family in a quaint county
clerk's office. One of the diamonds in the white-gold rings came from a ring
that Knight's father gave him on his 21st birthday, he said. As a family
tradition, Knight's grandfather had given his sons, including the senator,
diamond pinky rings. And the senator had passed the tradition on to his sons.
Knight's stand against his father in 2000 is well known within the gay
community. When Bird, the volunteer who performed Tuesday's ceremony, learned
afterward who he had just wed, he gasped.
"You are giving me goosebumps," he said. "I just married Pete Knight's
son."
This article appeared on page A - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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