Prop. 8 Plaintiffs Renew Vows One Year Later in Beverly Hills

Two of the plaintiffs involved in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the landmark case and lawsuit that led to the overturn of California’s ban on same-sex marriage, renewed their vows over Gay Pride Weekend at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel on Saturday, exactly one year after they became the first gay couple to be married in Los Angeles. 

“This is what people do. They fall in love, they commit to one another, and they get married,” said Jeff Zarrillo who re-wed his husband Paul Katami over the weekend, in an interview with KTLA. The couple, who has been together since 1998, held a star-studded celebration which hosted guests like Lance Bass and his fiance Michael Turchin, and featured a five-tiered white wedding cake. 

Actress and gay activist Jamie Lee Curtis was also present. “It’s about love. That love is love and you can’t really legislate against it,” Curtis said. 

KTLA reports that Jeff and Paul do not believe their work is done, saying “they know there are millions [of people] who do not support their rights” and that they won’t stop “until marriage is equal in all states.”

The couple plans to take their honeymoon in Europe, beginning with London. 

Last June, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa married the men on his last day in office, just hours after a federal appeals court lifted a ban on same-sex unions. The Los Angeles Times reports that the men were not able to be joined by their mothers last year due to the last-minute nature of their marriage–Katami’s mother lives in Northern California and Zarrillo’s mother in New Jersey. 

Both moms were present for Saturday’s festivities at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, which was reportedly officiated by “David Boies and Ted Olson, the two attorneys who represented the couple in the historic Proposition 8 challenge,” notes the Times.

This past weekend was Gay Pride Weekend. In San Francisco, thousands of enthusiasts congregated to celebrate the 44th annual LGBT Pride Parade as well as the 11th annual “Trans March,” the nation’s largest transgender pride event, where city officials unveiled the naming of a street called “Vicki Mar Lane,” after the late transgender activist and actress who died of an AIDS-related illness in 2011.