I am visiting San Francisco for the Pride weekend - one that turned out to be the most historic of them all, thanks to the Supreme Court rulings that legal same-sex marriages cannot be denied federal benefits, and that Proposition 8, which had banned same-sex marriages in California in late 2008, is dead on a legal technicality.

Gavin Newsom is always a favorite at San Francisco Pride. Currently the Lieutenant Governor of California, and previously the Mayor of San Francisco, he was a key player in the long process that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage in California. In particular, in 2004, as Mayor of San Francisco, he had started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in a deliberate flouting of Proposition 22, California's statutory gay marriage ban from 2000, setting up a legal battle that resulted in the state Supreme Court voiding the ban in 2008, and allowing legal same-sex marriages to proceed from summer 2008. Although a state constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, re-banned same-sex marriages later in 2008, the federal courts threw that ban out as well just two days prior to this photo.