SAN FRANCISCO — Two same-sex couples gave intimate accounts of their private and public lives Monday during the opening day of a highly anticipated federal trial to decide the constitutionality of state bans on gay marriage, at times tearfully testifying about moments of awkwardness, disappointment and shame that they said resulted from their inability to legally wed.
“I’ve been in love with a woman for 10 years, and I don’t have access to a word for it,” said Kristin Perry, 45, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the voter initiative that outlawed gay marriage in California. “You chose them over everybody else, and you want to feel that it is going to stick and that you are going to have the protection and support and inclusion that comes from letting people know you feel that way.”
Perry and her partner, Sandra Stier, 47, and a gay couple from Los Angeles, Paul Katami, 37, and Jeffrey Zarrillo, 36, were the first witnesses in a case that could become a landmark that determines whether gay Americans have the right to marry.
The trial is the first in a federal court on the question of whether the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment forbids prohibiting gays from getting married.
Regardless of the outcome of the case, it’s likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it could lead to gay-marriage bans being abolished or upheld nationwide.
