As marriage battle looms, California gays look back

By Amanda Beck

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - They were playing in a movie, but marchers who gathered in San Francisco last week to recreate a 1970s gay rights protest were not just acting.

Hundreds of people came to the Castro district, long favored by homosexual residents, to be extras in a movie that stars actor Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the country's first prominent openly gay leader, who won election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.

As much as on the past, the movie's marchers -- real-life members and supporters of San Francisco's famously strong gay community -- were focused on an upcoming California court decision that may set a national precedent on the legality of gay marriage.

The case started four years ago this week when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom suddenly allowed same-sex couples to marry. A court halted the weddings after a month, and the California Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case next month. A decision is expected by June 2.

One of the couples in the lawsuit who were extras in the filming on Friday said they thought of Milk, who was assassinated, when they exchanged vows four years ago in City Hall.

"Our thoughts turned to him, because we knew that he gave his life, 30 years earlier, for that same right in that same building," said Stuart Gaffney, 45.

Added partner John Lewis, 49: the Milk-inspired mantra has evolved from "It's OK to be gay," to "It's OK to be a gay family."

San Francisco is internationally known for its acceptance of gays into the mainstream and for enacting legal protections for gay residents and workers. Milk personified the shift of San Francisco's gay life from the shadows of night trysts to the daylight of a normal neighborhood.