Flowers for San Francisco

One person's gesture of support becomes an international movement

by Noël Lynne Figart

     The marriages in San Francisco have taken all of our attention over the past couple of months: the legal aspects, the political infighting, the media reaction, the popular voice, the flowers.
      Yes, the flowers. It started in Minnesota. Greg Scanlan and Timothy Holtz of Minneapolis were discussing the marriages in San Francisco, and Holtz commented that he would really love to show his support. Scanlan said, "Well, you can always send flowers."
      The idea spread, as ideas often do, across the Internet. Scanlan and Holtz emailed friends and family to encourage them to follow suit. In a LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) forum Mary VanLaecken posted what her co-workers were doing, and asked that people spread the word. "Wouldn't that be cool," VanLaecken said, "if people from all over the country - gay, straight and otherwise, started sending flowers to the people waiting in line to get married?"
      Suddenly orders flooded a San Francisco flower shop that sported a rainbow flag on its website. As the orders piled up, other gay-friendly flower shops were called and brought into the business of giving out flowers to the newlywed couples.
      "This is a brilliant idea," said Darren Barefoot, a technical writer from Vancouver, BC, "but I immediately recognized a problem. The flower shops apparently charge about U.S. $45 to deliver these flowers. That's probably market value, but it’s a bit steep for individuals who might want to help out (particularly if they’re paying in Canadian dollars or other weaker currencies) but can't spare fifty bucks."
      Barefoot then proceeded to create a fund that sought donations for the purchase and delivery of flowers to the couples waiting in line to be married. As of mid-March, when the marriages were halted by a California court, the fund had collected and distributed over $14,000 dollars.
      Eleanor Lang, a resident of New York, heard of the campaign and decided that instead of buying a new raincoat, she would send flowers. Unexpectedly, she received a thank you note a few days later. "It was so great," Lang said. "I got a letter with a return address I did not recognize, and it turned out to be a thank you note from a newlywed couple." The couple had been standing in the rain for three hours when they received the flowers, then had to wait another eight before it was their turn to be married. They told Lang that the flowers gave them a lot of support during that time. Two pictures accompanied the thank you note - one of the couple standing in the rain, and another of the newlyweds in their dresses.
      "They were just beautiful," Lang said. "They didn’t look like they had been standing in the rain for all that time." Lang found herself in tears upon reading the letter. "But the funny part," she said, "Was when my 15 year old found me. She said, 'What's with you?' I handed her the letter and after reading it, she also cried."
     It wasn't only residents of urban liberal areas that got into the act. Messages came from North Carolina, Georgia, and the Midwest. As reported on Sfgate.com, one couple received this message: "I'm an 87-year-old grandmother wishing you well."
      Because of the overwhelming workload, many San Francisco natives volunteered to help with the deliveries. Josh Jasper, a bi activist living in San Francisco, helped with the flower delivery. Instead of going to a high-end florist, he went to a flower wholesaler and brought several bouquets to be handed out.
      "It was amazing. The Civic Center is titanic and the line stretched around the building. There were families, people dressed in anime-style clothing, some in drag, some in fancy dress. But most people were dressed conservatively, like people would for a wedding. They seemed to be dressed in whatever they could find quickly."
      Jasper commented that protesters were gathered in one corner to keep them from milling around among the people in line and creating a disruption, though, "you could still hear them scream obscenities."
      Flowers weren't the only thing being handed out. Many of Jasper's family and friends helped pass out coffee and tea from a local company.
      "I felt like I was witnessing history," Jasper said. "I wish people would look at the faces of the people getting married and see them as individuals. I wish they would just talk to them one on one and hear their stories."

Noël Figart lives and writes in Fairlee. She can be reached at noel@pentide.com