Retying the knot
Saturday Jun 14
Retying the knot
Their first union voided, plaintiffs in gay marriage case ready for second try
By Will Oremus / Daily News Staff Writer
The first time Dave and Jeff Chandler got married, it didn’t turn out well.
As with the thousands of other gay couples who were wedded in a heady spree on the steps of San Francisco City Hall in February 2004, it wasn’t their relationship that crumbled. It was the legal status of their marriage license, which months later arrived at their San Mateo house by mail, stamped with the word “void.”
“It was devastating,” Dave Chandler recalls.
The Chandlers rebounded by joining 15 other Bay Area couples as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state. Four years later, their landmark high court victory having cleared the path for same-sex marriages to begin statewide Tuesday, the longtime partners are preparing to wed a second time.
Thus the men find themselves again on the front lines of a culture war so divisive it has swung the course of national elections. They live with the nagging knowledge that many Americans view their relationship as a threat to society’s fabric. Some of their fellow Californians are at this moment furiously rallying support for a November ballot measure to explicitly prohibit their brand of marriage.
But you wouldn’t have guessed it from a visit to the Chandlers’ bucolic home on West Hillsdale Boulevard in San Mateo on Friday afternoon.
Dave, 47, was working from home at his e-commerce job and preparing for a speech in San Francisco hosted by a nonprofit where he sits on the board. Jeff, 44, was savoring an earned respite from his stay-at-home dad duties as their two young sons, ages 4 and 1, napped.
They sat at the kitchen table, on which was a picture the 4-year-old had given Dave for Father’s Day. The frame read, “World’s Greatest Dad.”
Tags: chandler, jeff