Karen Thompson\u2019s fight for legal guardianship after her partner, Sharon Kowalski, became incapacitated in a Nov. 1983 traffic collision in Minnesota dragged on for years. Despite having exchanged rings and named each other in insurance policies, the couple\u2019s relationship was not recognized by Kowalski\u2019s family, and Thompson was denied visitation rights.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019There is no other case that approaches this one in symbolic importance,\u201d Tom Stoddard, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund,\u00a0told the New York Times in Aug. 1988<\/a>, on the eve of Kowalski\u2019s 32d birthday. The Minnesota Court of Appeals eventually ruled in Thompson\u2019s favor on December 17, 1991, apparently the first appeals court to recognize a lesbian or gay partner\u2019s rights as equivalent to a heterosexually-married spouse.<\/p>\n Personally, Duran always looked at marriage as political, something for other people. He didn\u2019t need government or religion to certify his love for Morris, a State employee at the DMV. But a year ago, when he and Morris mused about a quick Vegas wedding, Abbitt and her wife Bernadette Abbruzze said, \u201cAbsolutely not, we\u2019re having a wedding.\u201d Duran had officiated their nuptials in 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something that we fought for and darn it, John, I\u2019m glad you\u2019re gonna finally make use of it for yourself,\u201d longtime Orange County friend Pat Callahan told Duran.<\/p>\n That the once unimaginable is now normal doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s unassailable. After Trump\u2019s\u00a0Supreme Court scuttled women\u2019s reproductive rights\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0eviscerated the Voting Rights Act<\/a>, ending marriage equality is next on the Project 2025 agenda. Before that history is erased, here\u2019s a look at the Duran-Morris nuptials through the lens of that long fight for love.<\/p>\n California has a history of creating change, originating\u00a0the Mattachine Society<\/a>, the\u00a0Daughters of Bilitis<\/a>, and\u00a0ONE Magazine<\/a>\u00a0during the\u00a0Lavender Scare<\/a>\u00a0in the 1950s, for instance. However, in a terrible irony, the\u00a0Black Cat pushback<\/a>\u00a0in Silver Lake and the pivotal\u00a0Stonewall uprising<\/a>\u00a0in New York\u2019s Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969, sent many back into the closet, fearing police arrests at bar raids.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of shame. People were terrified of losing their jobs. A lot of them were teachers and professional people,\u201d\u00a0Abbitt said in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n Diane\u00a0Abbitt came out in 1973<\/a>\u00a0as a divorced mother for whom freedom was costly. She went to law school at night so she could keep custody of her two sons, as did her partner, Roberta Bennett. Founders of LA NOW\u2019s Lesbian and Sexuality Task Force, they testified before the California Legislature in favor of a bill to decriminalize homosexuality, sponsored by\u00a0Assembly member Willie Brown and State Senate leader George Moscone<\/a>. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill on May 12, 1975.<\/p>\n By 1977,\u00a0LGBTQ+ people and allies started advocating for gay rights as human rights<\/a>. California ally and Assembly member\u00a0Art Agnos started pushing for a gay rights job bill, AB 1<\/a>, at every opening legislative session. Nationally, lesbian feminist\u00a0Jean O\u2019Leary of the National Gay Task Force strategized with her closeted lover Midge Costanza, President Jimmy Carter\u2019s Public Liaison<\/a>, to hold an historic meeting of 14 gay and lesbian activists (including\u00a0MCC Founder Rev. Troy Perry<\/a>) in the White House on March 26.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, orange juice shill Anita Bryant and the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his new Moral Majority ignited the\u00a0homophobic Religious Right \u201cSave Our Children\u201d<\/a>\u00a0fuse that overturned a sexual orientation-protection ordinance in Dade County, Florida, and inspired the\u00a0anti-gay Briggs Initiative\/ Proposition 6 in California<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gay people were scared. After the progressive promises of Gay Liberation and Lesbian Feminism, Prop 6 proposed to ban gays, lesbians, and their straight allies from teaching and working in public schools.<\/p>\n Political consultant Peter Scott, who co-founded the closeted gay professionals group Orion with attorney Stephen Lachs, devised a response: they changed their name to Metropolitan Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA), becoming the nation\u2019s first gay political action committee, invited lesbians to join, and reached out to influencers. Abbitt, a prodigious fundraiser, was elected MECLA\u2019s first female board co-chair. Their mission,\u201d\u00a0Abbitt said later<\/a>, \u201cwas legal protections and full equality, including a seat at the legislative table, for gay people.\u201d<\/p>\n Nationally\u00a0renowned politico David Mixner<\/a>, who had just headed LA Mayor Tom Bradley\u2019s reelection campaign, came out, joined MECLA and helped form the No on Prop 6 campaign. Chaired by\u00a0Abbitt in the South and San Francisco Supervisor candidate Harvey Milk<\/a>\u00a0in the North, Mixner and Scott served as campaign managers with\u00a0\u201clavender menace\u201d lesbian feminist Ivy Bottini<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Torie Osborn<\/a>\u00a0hired to organize in SoCal. Jeanne C\u00f3rdova, a\u00a0second-wave feminist<\/a>, was the media director.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Briggs Initiative was overwhelmingly defeated on Nov. 7, 1978<\/a>. Twenty days later,\u00a0Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Abbitt was admitted to the State Bar in 1979, she and Bennett formed\u00a0Abbitt & Bennett, a law firm in which Bennett focused on family law<\/a>\u00a0and Abbitt specialized in business law and estate planning, including helping same-sex couples secure inheritance rights.<\/p>\n MECLA became so prominent by 1979,\u00a0Gov. Jerry Brown gave the keynote speech at a<\/a>\u00a0roast for businessman and\u00a0\u201cDemocratic heavyweight\u201d Sheldon Andelson<\/a>; Lily Tomlin emceed, and President Carter\u2019s mother Lillian attended.<\/p>\n But same sex relationships eluded official legal recognition. San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein vetoed the nation\u2019s first domestic partnership ordinance in 1982. Three years later, galvanized by the AIDS crisis, the new City of West Hollywood created the nation\u2019s first domestic partnership registry.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, anti-gay sentiment worsened with Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency, and in 1986, rabid right-winger Lyndon LaRouche sponsored a ballot initiative to\u00a0quarantine people with AIDS.\u00a0Abbitt co-chaired the\u00a0\u201cNo on 64\u201d campaign<\/a>\u00a0with Harry Britt and resoundingly defeated the proposition.<\/p>\n Abbitt went on to co-found or sit on the boards of AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and the post-MECLA Book Club, which evolved into\u00a0Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality (ANGLE)<\/a>. After Feinstein refused to say the words \u201cgay and lesbian\u201d while campaigning to be California\u2019s Governor in 1990, she\u00a0and ANGLE friends founded<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund<\/a>\u00a0to elect more LGBTQ+ people. She also fought for marriage equality through\u00a0Evan Wolfson\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Freedom to Marry<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Equality California<\/a>, headed by attorney Geoff Kors.<\/p>\n Abbitt and Bennett split in 1995, not long after becoming the first lesbian couple to waltz around the East Room ballroom in the White House on Jan. 5, 1994. In 1997, Abbitt met Abbruzze, owner of the green fuel-efficiency company\u00a0Envirolution<\/a>. They married 20 years later in 2017.<\/p>\n Abbitt met John Duran in 1983<\/a>\u00a0when he was still working at Disneyland, in law school at Western State University in Orange County and called her for a job. He clerked for Abbitt & Bennett for six months in 1984.<\/p>\n Everything changed for Duran in 1985 when his best friend Scott Fleener\u00a0suddenly died of \u201cHIV disease.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cScott was the first person I knew who died,\u201d\u00a0Duran told The LA Weekly in Nov. 2004<\/a>. \u201cI was robbed of the chance to say goodbye, and at his memorial service I had one of those \u2018As God Is My Witness\u2019 moments when I vowed to find a cure for this disease.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Prop 64 AIDS quarantine initiative hit the California ballot in 1986, Duran went to Pat Callahan, co-chair of the Elections Committee of the County of Orange (ECCO), and asked to be put to work.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the start of my political career,\u201d Duran told the LA Weekly. \u201cIt completely overturned my sense of the way the world should work\u2026 Everything changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Duran clerked with\u00a0Joel Loquvam<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0Marjorie Rushforth and Georgia Garrett-Norris<\/a>\u00a0(1985-1986) in their Santa Ana law firm. He passed the bar in 1987 and started a new law firm in Anaheim with Loquvam and Tom Kendricks in 1988.<\/p>\n It was hard. The\u00a0Ronald Reagan-pumped OC world<\/a>\u00a0was dominated by right-wing political extremists and Religious Right evangelicals, spurred on by\u00a0Rep. Robert \u201cB-1 Bob\u201d Dornan<\/a>\u00a0(R-Santa Ana) and\u00a0Rep. William Dannemeyer<\/a>\u00a0(R-Fullerton), author of\u00a0Shadow in the Land: Homosexuality in America.<\/a>\u00a0In 1989, Dannemeyer\u2019s obsessive fixation with homosexuals \u2013 intensified by the AIDS crisis \u2013 prompted him to read the sexually graphic statement \u201cWhat Homosexuals Do\u201d into the Congressional Record (see pages 69-73 in the June 29, 1989 Congressional Record<\/a>).<\/p>\n Dannemeyer\u2019s wingman was rabidly\u00a0anti-gay Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition<\/a>, who could quickly muster threatening \u201cChristian warriors\u201d stewed in the Biblical belief that God allowed them to kill homosexuals.<\/p>\n Janet Avery, President of Orange County Cultural Pride, hired Duran to secure the Pride festival permit she obtained from the city. Sheldon had organized hundreds of protesters to demand that the permit be revoked.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole thought of the First Amendment being dictated by a religious leader is . . . repugnant,\u201d\u00a0Duran told the LA Times before the July 17 City Council meeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mayor Dan Young seemed sympathetic to Sheldon\u2019s demand. But after Duran\u2019s rousing speech, City Attorney Ed Cooper said that OCCP \u201chas a constitutional right of free speech and assembly, which the [city parks] director is bound to observe.\u201d<\/p>\n After the council vote, Duran was suddenly rushed by Sheldon and his Christian storm troopers who\u00a0placed their hands over his head and screamed, \u201cOUT, SATAN! OUT!\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Guards rushed to pull Duran to safety and escorted him out of the building.<\/p>\n The first Orange County Gay Pride Festival was held Sept. 9-10 in Centennial Regional Park, marred by clashes with Sheldon\u2019s protesters. Nonetheless,\u00a0Duran wrote on his Facebook page commemorating<\/a>\u00a0Avery\u2019s July 2018 passing, \u201cthe First Amendment ruled the day.\u201d<\/p>\n Duran later discovered his law office had a swastika and the initials WAR \u2013 White Aryan Resistance \u2013 carved into it. Black scorch marks on his back porch looked as if someone had tried to set it on fire.<\/p>\n But political work called. After the NO on Prop 64 campaign in 1986, roughly 200 HIV\/AIDS bills were introduced in Sacramento. The next year, Duran joined LIFE AIDS Lobby, a new coalition of 102 organizations from across California that \u201chad to find a common table to hash out policy and stand united. And that\u2019s what we ended up doing,\u201d\u00a0Duran said later<\/a>.<\/p>\n They met with legislative leaders and their deputies, such as AIDS expert\u00a0Stan Hadden<\/a>. When Hadden died of AIDS at age 35, advocates carried a gigantic rainbow flag through the streets of Sacramento after his funeral.<\/p>\n Though only 27-28 years old, Duran was elected statewide co-chair because he was HIV-negative and the elder statesmen were sick and dying. \u201cWe all realized, no matter what our political differences or our great diversity or gender or race or anything else \u2014 it didn\u2019t really matter, we were all in the fight for our lives, and we were there to do what was best for the common good,\u201d he told the WeHo AIDS Monument project.<\/p>\n In 1990, Duran and his partner Jim Keltner moved to West Hollywood. He was already involved in WeHo politics after helping local attorney Chris Fairchild get his client, fired gay sheriff\u2019s deputy Bruce Boland, reinstated. He then joined Mixner, Abbitt, and others in founding ANGLE to scrutinize and contribute to state and federal electoral candidates. He met Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton during an ANGLE interview on Sept. 29, 1991, who they endorsed and helped to elect President.<\/p>\n That was the same day California Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed the \u201cGay Rights Bill,\u201d AB 101, that Duran, his co-chair Ken Jones, and their LIFE Lobby team had worked to craft and pass with\u00a0executive director Laurie McBride<\/a>. Wilson\u2019s betrayal of his promise to sign AB 101 resulted in two weeks of protest.<\/p>\n The veto of AB 101 also prompted LIFE Lobby to run gay and lesbian candidates in Democratic primaries. Duran ran against Assemblymember Burt Margolin in West Hollywood and lost. However, Councilmember Sal Guarriello and his wife Rita encouraged him to run for West Hollywood City Council \u201csomeday.\u201d Duran eventually joined the WeHo City Council in 2001.<\/p>\n \u201cI was forged in fire,\u201d Duran later told the LA Weekly.<\/p>\n In 1996, Duran got sober, and a miracle triple-drug AIDS cocktail had staunched the dying. In 1998, after eight years of State Republican majority rule, voters elected moderate Democrat Gray Davis as Governor, with Sheila James Kuehl already a star as the first out gay person serving in the legislature. LIFE Lobby\u2019s funding dried up, and the organization folded.<\/p>\n San Francisco-based politicos responded, creating the California Alliance for Pride and Equality (CAPE) in 1999 with Jean Harris as executive director. CAPE helped pass Assemblymember Carole Migden\u2019s AB 25 domestic partner registry bill and Kuehl\u2019s AB 537, the first statewide LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying law.<\/p>\n But America changed again in 2000. The\u00a0US Supreme Court seemed to award Republican born-again Christian George W. Bush<\/a>\u00a0the presidency over Democratic Vice President Al Gore, injecting questions about election integrity into the national political consciousness. On Sept. 11, 2001, the World Trade Towers fell, and the Pentagon was severely damaged in coordinated Al-Qaida terrorist attacks. Defying history,\u00a0Republicans won both the House and Senate in the midterms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Harris left CAPE in 2003. Geoff Kors, a lawyer recruited by Harris to serve on CAPE\u2019s Board of Directors, stepped in as interim executive director. With little money, virtually no staff but a hard-working Board, Kors worked 24\/7 to expand the Board to 14, recruiting Abbitt and Duran, develop a strategy, and change the name to Equality California (EQCA).<\/p>\n Kors was no pedestrian politico. A graduate of Stanford Law School, he\u2019d been Director of several ACLU of Illinois Gay and Lesbian Rights\/AIDS projects, and in 1990, he helped lead the nation\u2019s first successful campaign to pass a ballot measure to grant same-sex couples domestic partner rights. In 1996, as a legal adviser to San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Kors\u00a0originated the groundbreaking and successful Equal Benefits Ordinance<\/a>, alerting companies and corporations that to do business with San Francisco, they must provide equal benefits to same-sex partners.<\/p>\n Kors developed coalition partnerships and strategies with the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. This led to out lesbian Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg\u2019s 2003 comprehensive AB 205, giving same-sex couples virtually all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Gov. Davis signed the bill on Sept. 19, 2003, effective on Jan. 1, 2005.<\/p>\n In 2004, the\u00a0Massachusetts Supreme Court\u2019s Goodridge decision<\/a>\u00a0prompted San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to conspire with staff and NCLR\u2019s Kate Kendell to bring a constitutional challenge by\u00a0officiating a surprise marriage of lesbian icons Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin<\/a>\u00a0on February 12, Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to approximately 4,000 same-sex couples who stood in line at city hall to grasp their dream.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, out gay Assemblymember Mark Leno introduced his first marriage bill,\u00a0AB 1967, The California Marriage License Non-Discrimination Act<\/a>, co-sponsored by the LGBT Caucus and EQCA, that would \u201cdefine marriages in California as a civil contract between two persons, allowing same sex couples access to the same rights and responsibilities of marriage as heterosexual couples in the state.\u201d It stalled in committee.<\/p>\n In June, the\u00a0California Judicial Council ordered\u00a0<\/a>that six active marriage cases be consolidated into one case for trial, becoming\u00a0In re Marriage<\/a>\u00a0Cases. Separately, on August 12, the California Supreme Court ruled that Newsom did not have the authority to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and declared those 4,000 licenses invalid.<\/p>\n \u201cDel is eighty-three years old, and I am seventy-nine,\u201d said Phyllis Lyon. \u201cAfter being together for more than fifty years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne very real consequence of the Court\u2019s action is that if one of the women were to die before the other, the surviving partner would have no right to social security or pension benefits and no protection against losing their family home,\u201d\u00a0the ACLU noted<\/a>.<\/p>\n Worried that evangelical voters would stay home without a reaction,\u00a0Karl Rove and Bush\u2019s re-election team generated<\/a>\u00a0successful constitutional amendment initiatives in 11 states barring same-sex marriages.<\/p>\n The next year, the California Legislature passed Leno\u2019s AB 849, which was then vetoed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0In re Marriage Cases<\/a>\u00a0trudged along until May 15, 2008, when the California Supreme Court issued a 4-3 ruling with\u00a0Chief Justice Ronald M. George<\/a>\u00a0that marriage equality is \u201cthe fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n West\u00a0Hollywood started issuing marriage licenses and performing weddings<\/a>\u00a0in West Hollywood Park on June 17, 2008.<\/p>\n For one couple, marriage was urgent. The lesbian-in-charge and her two sons had driven for hours with her partner living on borrowed time. The ill wife died five months later, just as voters overturned marriage equality through Prop 8 in Nov. 2008.<\/p>\n Five years later, on June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court overturned Prop 8 in\u00a0Hollingsworth v. Perry\u00a0and ruled against part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in\u00a0United States v. Windsor.<\/p>\n Geoff Kors didn\u2019t wait for\u00a0Obergefell v. Hodges<\/a>\u00a0on on June 26, 2015. He married his love James Williamson in 2014.<\/p>\n Kors left EQCA in 2011, have passed more than 70 pieces of LGBTQ legislation. In 2015, he was elected to the Palm Springs City Council, including serving as Mayor. He left in 2022. Meanwhile, Williamson shone brightly as an elected member of the Palm Springs School Board.<\/p>\n On May 3, Geoff and James, Diane and Bernadette welcomed John and Mark into their tribe of aging LGBTQ+ pioneers whose love was forged by fire.<\/p>\n Check out Karen Ocamb\u2019s video chat with John Duran.<\/a> <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/61f0b7a5-593b-40f5-8a03-0b1393c9fce3_1431x1073-600x450.webp\"){kind=spacer}
The Abbitt and Abbruzze wedding \/ Photo credit: Karen Ocamb<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/809a582d-3e88-4c48-899a-083f7c6311cb_760x664-600x524.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/02ecaba7-240a-4fc7-adee-37818d6bde04_1431x1073-600x450.webp\"){kind=spacer}
ANGLE attorneys Diane Abbitt and Roberta Bennett slow dance in the Clinton White House in 1994. (Photo by Dr. Scott Hitt)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/13cb8a22-ba86-45c6-a024-312877e8a0f7_1429x769-600x323.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/7b89ff6a-3a48-42f9-98e8-6622211f6972_1430x1008-600x423.webp\")
Funeral for legislative AIDS policy expert Stan Hadden in Sacramento,1991. (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/be43b341-12aa-4dac-bc06-67d99a143684_351x351.webp\")
Laurie McBride and John Duran at AIDS Action Council party in 1993 during Clinton Inauguration (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/696ca2ba-e0dc-4225-beba-30e032c5410a_1430x925-600x388.webp\")
Jim Keltner, Frontiers publisher and LIFE Lobby board member Bob Craig, LIFE Lobby\/ANGLE\u2019s John Duran and Lambda Legal Executive Director Tom Stoppard at Clinton Inauguration event hosted by AIDS Action. (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6691c59c-dc8b-4ea1-83ff-dd2cb626c96d_410x367.webp\")
Jean Harris with Denise Penn (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/dc5b01d7-95f5-4b1a-84c2-30c6ec6af3e9_1431x1073-600x450.webp\"){kind=spacer}
EQCA\u2019s Diane Abbitt, John Duran, and Geoff Kors. (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/18d76f16-2928-4101-9976-d93427efe02a_508x400.webp\")
Gov. Gray Davis congratulates EQCA Executive Director Geoff Kors on AB 205, which he signed on Sept. 19, 2003. (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6b9a114a-595a-4ab1-b68c-09b28bfe5613_960x690-600x431.webp\")
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin married in 2004 as Kate Kendell, Roberta Achtenberg, and Joyce Newstat look on (Photo Liz Mangelsdorf courtesy Kendell)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bc9b9f9f-88bd-4b25-bce9-93286901bd8c_1024x780-600x457.webp\")
Assembly member Mark Leno and Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors after passage of Leno\u2019s marriage equality bill in 2005. (Photo courtesy Kors)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d29f3742-8201-48f8-b2b5-6a3dec8d82e5_1429x1072-600x450.webp\")
West Hollywood Ribbon Cutting ceremony June 17, 2008. Councilmember John Duran, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Mayor John Heilman, and Councilmembers Abbe Land, Jeffrey Prang, and Sal Guarriello (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/014b3884-5671-4247-a005-ab085673a162_1431x1073-600x450.webp\"){kind=spacer}
WeHo Councilmember John Duran officiates at the June 17, 2008, wedding of a lesbian couple and their two sons. (Photo by Karen Ocamb)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/7241c0e4-1494-45a2-8ddf-7fbd7f912593_1431x1136-600x476.webp\"){kind=spacer}
Power LGBTQ+ pioneer married couples \/ Photo courtesy: Karen Ocamb<\/p>\n