Washington, DC -- Six years ago, James Packard and Erwin Gomez got married in Amsterdam, "but it didn't count because it wasn't in the U.S.," Gomez said.

So when the Rockville couple heard about the same-sex marriages in San Francisco, Packard persuaded Gomez to hop on a flight west.

They arrived at 2 a.m. Tuesday, the ninth couple from City Hall's door, and slept for eight hours on the steps. By 12:30 that afternoon, they were standing in the marble rotunda of that palatial building and repeating, "For better, for worse . . . in sickness and in health . . . I do."

"I felt like, OH-MY-GOD," Gomez, 39, said yesterday. "This is finally happening." When it came time to order their marriage license, they signed up for not one, not two -- but six -- notarized copies.

Yesterday, the couple returned to Maryland, prepared to file joint tax returns, refile the title on their townhouse and take whatever legal action is necessary to force the state to recognize their marriage

For now, they "have a valid marriage," said their attorney, Yolanda Faerber. "They had a valid licensing authority, and it's a valid marriage in the eyes of San Francisco authorities."

But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to issue licenses to gay couples -- 2,700 in the past week -- is facing a legal challenge in the California courts. And the Maryland General Assembly is considering measures to ban such unions.

On Wednesday, the Maryland House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman and a bill that would prevent same-sex marriages performed elsewhere from being recognized in Maryland.

Under the U.S. Constitution, Maryland is required to accept the laws of other states, unless those measures are deemed inconsistent with state policy, Assistant Attorney General Kathryn M. Rowe has said.

For the past 30 years, Maryland law has defined marriage as a contract between a man and a woman. But that matter could be clouded by the state's policy of anti-discrimination based on sexual orientation, legal experts say.

Maryland is one of 12 states that have not passed a "defense of marriage" law to prohibit recognition of gay marriages performed elsewhere. In Virginia, which already has such a law, the House of Delegates recently approved legislation to clear up ambiguity over civil unions or partnerships.

The District has a domestic partnership law that, among other things, gives registered partners the right to visit each other in a nursing home or hospital or to take time off from work to care for each other. But city officials have steered clear of the gay marriage debate. They say the Republican-controlled Congress could use its oversight power to block any initiative to allow gay unions and might even reverse the domestic partnership measure.

Packard and Gomez seem undaunted, and perhaps inspired, by the legal wrangling. They have told their attorney that they "want to keep this in the limelight and at the forefront of people's minds so the movement can keep momentum," Faerber said.

Yesterday, a few hours after their red-eye flight touched down at Dulles International Airport, the couple arrived at the salon where Gomez works, the Elizabeth Arden's Red Door Salon in Northwest Washington. Gomez has been Elizabeth Arden's No.1 makeup artist, worldwide, for the past two years. His eyebrow work has been celebrated in Washingtonian, Latina and Redbook magazines.

Packard and Gomez were met with lavender crepe decorations, a white, frosted cake and decals on the mirrors that exulted, "JUST MARRIED!"

"Congratulations!" shouted a woman with wet fingernails, hobbling up on disposable orange sandals and newly pedicured toes. Genette Haile-McDonald is a United Nations employee currently on leave. In July, she married the former ambassador to Zimbabwe, and Gomez did the makeup for her wedding.

"I'm married like you!" Gomez told her.

"Next, you will adopt a child like us," she said.

"We're doing that down the line," Packard said. (Currently, the couple share their townhouse with three dogs.)

Haile-McDonald mentioned that her husband is now a partner in a downtown law firm, adding, "So if you need advice . . . "

"That's wonderful!" Packard said, beaming.

"We may need it," Gomez said.

But for most of the day, happiness was the theme. When the salon's general manager, Sue Page, walked up, her arms wide open for a hug, Gomez told her: "I'm one of you guys now! I have a marriage license now."

Perhaps happiest of all the well-wishers was the salon's guest service manager, Morenike Abdullah, a longtime friend of the couple's, though she admitted that her support for their cause was relatively new.

"I was raised in the Muslim faith," she said slowly, sitting on a plush red chair in the waiting area of the salon and thinking about Gomez, next to her, and her father, an imam, back home in New York. "It's very traditional, very strict, and it tends to be very anti- . . . How do I say it?"

"Just say it," Gomez told her.

"Anti-gay. It's bad. It's wrong. It's straight to hell," Abdullah said, describing the traditional view of homosexuality. "But it's hard to really agree with that 100 percent because you get to know people, and the true idea of marriage is love and caring and understanding."

When Gomez and Packard look back on their big day in San Francisco, they are amazed at how unfashionable it was. "It was sweats and jeans," Packard said. "But it wasn't a matter of being glamorous. It was a matter of what's important: getting married."

Motorists honked their horns at the crowd assembled on the steps of City Hall, Gomez said, and people walking past shouted, "Congratulations!" But yesterday, Gomez could still hear the voice of the person who threw a water bottle and shouted an obscenity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56060-2004Feb19.html

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