In 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom opened the courthouse for 48 hours on Valentine's Day to issue marriage licenses to over 3,300 same-sex couples, granting them access to approximately 1,000 legal rights including hospital visitation, inheritance, and healthcare benefits that were denied to them despite being available to opposite-sex couples; this action challenged discriminatory laws and demonstrated that the proper democratic process for addressing civil rights issues involves challenging discriminatory laws through the courts rather than defying them, as Newsom's actions were based on his constitutional oath to uphold the state constitution which prohibits discrimination.
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The 1,000 Rights Denied to Same-Sex CouplesAdded:
You know, a lot of people don't like Gavin Newsom, which is understandable.
He's thrown trans people under the bus to some degree. That's unacceptable. He seems to want to capitulate to Republicans. That's also unacceptable.
There's a lot of stuff that he does that I don't like. But, there's a debate that he had with this evangelical nutcase named John MacArthur. Sorry, that's Larry King. John MacArthur. He debated him on gay marriage in in I think 2004.
This is during a time when George W.
Bush wanted to ban gay marriage federally through a constitutional amendment. He was pushing for a constitutional amendment and nobody nobody supported gay marriage at the time. At absolute best you'd see people supporting civil union. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, all of the major players in the Democratic Party were opposed to it. But, not Gavin Newsom. He deserves mad respect for that, at least. He was on the correct side of history all the way back in 2004 when nobody else was.
That's respectable. So, I want to listen to a bit of this debate with him and this scumbag here who just died recently, by the way. Well, of course not all couples are going to have children, but only couples No. Where does it start? Here? Um my first question is uh why if you support equal rights for gays in regard to marriage, was an exception made for those same gay couples to allow to marry during extended hours which were given um to them as an exception for from what I suppose straight couples. Let's say uh hundreds of straight couples wanted to get married this last Valentine's Day. What So, what happened was on Valentine's Day, they opened the courthouse. He was the mayor of San Francisco and they opened the courthouse specially so that they could do gay marriage certificates. He decided to as the mayor allow gay marriage and they opened it for a period of 48 hours because they knew that it would be shut down by George Bush or by the state or by whoever was trying to you know prevent gay marriage from happening at that moment. So they opened it specially for 48 hours and allowed people to get gay married for that time. And she's saying, "Well, straight people have to have equal access. You're segregating and giving special privileges to gay people. What is wrong with these [ __ ] people, dude? Really?" But that same exception would have been made for them.
And my second part of that question is, who paid for all of the extra staff and overtime that was required to accommodate um this situation? [ __ ] marriage certificates, obviously. Are you [ __ ] me? You know those come with a fee, right? Yeah, uh both uh good questions. The fact is we had over 200 volunteers. Uh the city actually uh in in a curious and unintended way has actually generated revenue uh from this effort. The marriage certificates, there's actually a fee uh that uh that is encumbered uh to the couple. But let me back up on the point of extending hours for one class of marriage versus another. No, we extended the hours of operation for marriage for everybody.
Opposite-gender couples as well as same-sex couples. Check this one out.
Well, of course not all couples are going to have children, but only couples that are male and female are going to have children.
Uh that's not true. And the only way you procreate the race is between a man and a woman. So built into the fabric of human society is of course the male-female and the producing of a child. That as I said is the DNA, it's the genetic structure of civilization.
And we've done every You mean that's how people reproduce? Okay, but are Are saying you don't think that people who cannot reproduce should be married?
Like, I don't know, an older couple, say both widowed, you don't think they should be getting married because the whole point of marriage is to have children? Everything we can throughout history, just just about every every civilization has done everything it can to protect the sanctity [clears throat] of marriage because they understand not only do you produce the life, but you want to bring the life to the standards and the values that are precious, that are important to Okay, every every culture throughout history has protected the sanctity of marriage. Is he saying he thinks that every culture throughout history has had the concept of marriage?
That's factually incorrect. The people in the Bible, marriage didn't exist in the Bible, certainly not in the way we understand it today. It's a more modern conceptualization of things. When Jesus was around, marriage did not exist in its current form. And also, when you say cultures protected the sanctity of marriage, you mean that they prevented gay marriage. Give me a [ __ ] break.
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create a civilized environment in which >> to live. What's your argument, mayor, against the logic of that statement?
Genetically, DNA, it's man and woman.
It's what the marriage and and are we being Yeah, but it's also freedom.
People have the freedom to live their lives the way they want, to do what they want to do. What's wrong with that?
You're using semantics. You call it liberal union, call it gay In 1948, Larry, these were the same there were sim- not dissimilar arguments, not quite analogous, about the fact that races were put on separate continents around the world because God decreed that they shouldn't in any way, shape, or form procreate. Uh the point is some of these arguments are are increased I mean they're just reminiscent of my with Isn't that fascinating? That's a really good point.
Up until the 1950s, 60s, 70s, even into the 80s, people were saying interracial marriage is wrong because God put them on different continents for a reason. He didn't want them intermarrying.
Identical logic. Respect to the pastor.
I just you know I'm a I'm a practicing Catholic. I got married in the church 2 plus years. I don't see what we're doing in terms of advancing the bond of love and monogamy and extending that to families, families of same sex, in any way, shape, or form takes away anything from the church or the sanctity of the union that my wife and I have.
It doesn't take away from your experience. And also it's about freedom.
Freedom to make a choice for your own life. It's none of your business if gay people want to get married. These people are just the lowest of the low. I would just like to ask the mayor as a practic practicing Catholic, do you believe the Bible is the word of God?
Yeah, look pastor, I'm not going to get in a theological debate with you. That would be inappropriate.
>> not a theological debate. That's just a straight question. Do you believe the Bible is the authoritative word of God?
>> Yeah, I I I would respect I guess I do. Now the response Well then the Bible says when God created man, he said one man, one woman cleave together for life. He was quoting something there. It wasn't about how marriage is supposed to work. Again, marriage did not exist in its current form. This is anachronistic. You are superimposing what you believe Jesus was talking about based on modern issues that are discussed. Jesus was not saying that gay marriage is wrong with that.
You are superimposing a meaning that was not there.
That's a family. Jesus in the New Testament reaffirms that. All the writers of the Old and the New Testament affirm it. I I guess the bottom line is we're living and advancing together across all kinds of differences, pastor.
It is an extraordinary, miraculous thing to come out here in San Francisco. And I think the world looks to us to see that it's possible to live together and advance together across our differences.
And I'm proud to represent a city that has diverse points of view, open points of view that Yes, it's called freedom.
Freedom to experience life the way you want to experience it. Freedom to do what you want to do with your own life.
And this scumbag is dead set on preventing people from living their own lives because he wants you to live the life he wants you to live. He doesn't want you to have the free choice to do things the way that you want to do them.
doesn't believe in discrimination and has evolved from the old constructs that I think have frankly held back society and many that are inconsistent, yes, with your faith. And I respect the difference of opinion. I don't respect the difference of opinion. I don't think anybody should respect the difference of opinion when the difference of opinion is on democracy. Okay, there's a foundational principle in our democracy that we can disagree on things, but we cannot disagree on freedoms. Freedom comes above all else. We have the right to live our lives the way we want up until the moment it affects somebody else negatively. It doesn't affect John MacArthur negatively in any way for some couple to get gay married. So, this isn't a conversation that should be respected. Or more accurately, so this isn't a disagreement that should earn respect from anybody.
Were you challenging, Mayor, the wishes of the people of California? No, I was actually upholding my constitutional oath to bear full faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the state of California. And Larry, nowhere in that Constitution does it allow me to discriminate against people. And what we were doing previous to our directive was, I believe, discriminating against people. And I find that abhorrent and I find that inappropriate. And we wanted to stand up on principle, stand up on a constitutional footing, and we made the appropriate action. Now, 3,300-plus couples have affirmed their loved love.
And in turn, Larry, I believe my marriage has been affirmed. Many states held to it a black couldn't marry a white in the southern states. It's It's only 20 years ago that couldn't happen.
Legislation didn't change it.
>> here, Larry, is the definition of marriage. It's amazing to me that the mayor uh can defy the law and talk about it as though it were a noble thing. What if mayors around the nation just openly defied the law? That's literally how it works, [ __ ] You do something and then the Supreme Court determines if it's legal to do or not. That's how it has always worked. Donald Trump is is completely ignoring the law on things that have already been settled by the Supreme Court. And he's doing things that are very clearly constitutional.
The Supreme Court can't decide that birthright citizenship doesn't exist because it's explicit, word-for-word clear in the Constitution. There is no ambiguity there. They can't decide that Trump can run for a third term. There is no ambiguity there. It says you cannot run for a third term as president if you've already served two. The point is there are some things you can't do that with. Gavin Newsom was following the regular process.
What kind of a country would we have? I believe when you're an elected official, you should have respect for the law and the people That's so interesting. I wonder how she feels about Donald Trump.
How you guys think she feels about Donald Trump and what he's been up to lately? of California have had a ballot initiative, the definition of marriage in California is a union between one man and one woman.
She said separate but unequal. At least there's an argument being made by the presidential candidates that the thousand plus benefits afforded opposite gender couples, married couples, can at least be considered as an extended benefit with civil unions. The bottom line is a visitation, the rights of pension benefits, health care benefits, inheritance rights are not afforded opposite gender couple are afforded opposite gender couples but not same-sex couples. So Right. And also, what happens if you're like on death's door?
Now the your spouse that you've lived with for 20 years can't come visit you, can't make decisions for you, can't do any of that [ __ ] Like you said, inheritance rights. Like people don't realize how important marriage is, how how valuable it is for a couple that lives together. Uh to say that's not discriminatory to me is abjectly remarkable when in fact it is discriminatory and she's preaching at least a separate but unequal standard.
>> Point is Gavin Newsom used to be a hard [ __ ] And after seeing him do this whole debate, it was like a 30-minute debate or something like that.
I have mad respect for Gavin Newsom after that, after watching that debate.
Now I completely agree that he's turned on trans people, like I said at the start. To some degree, you know, he's I think I don't think it's about turning on trans people as much as it is trying to appeal to the center, and that's stupid and a waste of time and effort.
Don't don't bother. But, you know, I think that um knowing who he was back then and where his positions were, I I important. Anyway, tell me what you think in the comments.
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