Same-sex couples reflect on their hard-fought right to wed a decade after it became legal in Illinois.

The wedding ceremony was simple but historic.

One bride wore a black satin jacket with a white boutonniere on the lapel. The other bride donned a leopard print jacket and clutched a small bouquet of white flowers.

Nearly a decade ago, Vernita Gray and Pat Ewert took their sacred vows in the living room of their Chicago condo, marking the first same-sex marriage in Illinois.

As they sealed their union with a kiss, they were flanked by their loved ones — including many prominent gay rights activists who had fought so hard for the right they had just exercised.

As part of the festivities, a friend sang “At Last,” popularized by Etta James.

“All of these people who had been in our home had been part of the struggle, had been part of the fight,” recalled Pat Ewert, 75, during a recent interview. “It was awesome.”

On Nov. 20, 2013, Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation making Illinois the 16th state to legalize same-sex marriage at a ceremony at the University of Illinois at Chicago that was attended by thousands, including Gray and Ewert.

The bill was signed on a desk brought from Springfield upon which President Abraham Lincoln wrote his first inaugural address in the 1860s, according to state officials.

On a desk once used by Abraham Lincoln, Gov. Pat Quinn signs the gay marriage bill at the UIC Forum on Nov. 20, 2013. (Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune)

During his speech, Quinn invoked a different speech made by Lincoln.

“In the very beginning of the Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois said that our nation was conceived in liberty,” Quinn said. “And he said it’s dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, and that’s really what we’re celebrating today. It’s a triumph of democracy.”

While the milestone was joyous for many, there was still a faction vehemently opposed to the change: One bishop in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield had pledged to offer prayers “for exorcism in reparation for the sin of same-sex marriage” at the time Quinn was expected to sign the legislation.

Ten years later, same-sex marriage has gained far greater acceptance across the nation, with 71% of Americans believing same-sex marriage should be legal, according to a Gallup poll released in June. This is compared with 53% of those surveyed by Gallup in 2013; support for the legalization of these unions has generally risen since 1996, when 27% of respondents favored same-sex marriage rights, according to Gallup.

Alicia Atkinson, 33, left, and Laurin Fabry, 29, both from Eola, appear at the DuPage County Clerk’s office June 2, 2014, to be among the first same-sex couples to marry. (Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune)

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, spurring celebrations across the country, including in Illinois.

“We don’t have to look at a map to see where we will be a married couple anymore,” one Chicago man told the Tribune at the time, as he was headed to celebrate the ruling with his husband.

Despite this legal backing and widespread support, advocates say it’s a precarious time for LGBTQ rights in the United States, including the freedom to marry.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work for gay couples, because forcing her to do so would violate her First Amendment right to free speech. The case was considered a victory for the far religious right; the dissenting Supreme Court justices lamented the decision, describing it as “taking steps backward” in terms of LGBTQ rights.

“Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. … (T)he immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the dissent, according to The Associated Press.

President Joe Biden in December signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which was designed to protect same-sex marriages if Obergefell v. Hodges were to ever fall. The act is also intended to safeguard interracial marriages.

“There are powerful forces that want to roll back decisions like Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down the remaining marriage bans around the country as a matter of federal law,” said Camilla Taylor, deputy legal director for litigation at Lambda Legal in Chicago. “I’m optimistic that the American public won’t allow that to happen, because we’ve come so far so fast.”

As for Illinois, while same-sex marriage was legalized in November 2013, the law wouldn’t go into effect until the following summer.

At the time, Ewert worried that would be too late: Her partner Gray, a longtime LGBTQ activist, was battling terminal cancer. But a federal court order allowed them to get their marriage licenses immediately; they were wed Nov. 27, 2013, a few days after Quinn signed the legislation, Ewert recounted.

For Gray, their wedding was “the culmination of so many things she worked for her whole life,” Ewert said.

“I had a more romantic reason,” Ewert added. “I was actually able to marry the person I loved. That was what’s important.”

Gray died at the age of 65 in March 2014, a few months before the legislation took effect.

As Ewert was making Gray’s final arrangements, she recognized the power in the word “wife.”

“I’d call and say ‘Vernita was my wife.’ And the people would be like ‘OK, I understand that,’” Ewert said. “They don’t understand ‘partner’ or other words. They understand wife. They understand husband.”

After Gray’s death, it didn’t cross Ewert’s mind that she would ever love again.

“It’s the last thing you think about,” she said.

But eventually, she “was so blessed” to find love once more: Ewert married her wife, Susan Blake, about six years ago at a small poolside ceremony in California, exercising her right to marriage equality for the second time.

“Sometimes things aren’t that important to you until you are denied them,” Ewert said. “The ability to marry is just a right that nobody should be denied.”

Yvonne Zipter, 69, and Kathy Forde, 60, of the Portage Park neighborhood were among the first same-sex couples in Illinois who married after legalization.

They were overjoyed when the law changed but hadn’t been planning a wedding.

Then family and friends started saying, “Yea, we get to go a wedding!”

“So many people were excited about it, so we decided to do a wedding,” Zipter said, laughing.

They married in July 2014 at the Logan Arts Center at the University of Chicago. Guests danced to an eclectic mix of music, including a lot of Motown hits. Instead of a wedding cake, they served pie, which Zipter had always liked better for dessert.

“Which was a very big hit,” Forde added.

They recalled that their niece, who was 4 at the time, served as the flower girl.

Prior to the wedding, she had gotten into an argument with another child at preschool, who told her “two ladies can’t get married.”

“Yes they can,” the little girl had replied, ”and I’m going to be in their wedding.”

Zipter and Forde had been together for 25 years before they wed. For most of their relationship, they couldn’t fathom that one day they would be allowed to get married.

“It never occurred to me that we would be able to legally marry,” Zipter said. “I thought (same-sex marriage) might happen someday, but I didn’t think it would happen in our lifetime.

But they could see that attitudes were changing, especially among younger people.

Then Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage following a landmark ruling from the state’s highest court about 20 years ago.

California became the second state to do so in 2008, but then voters approved Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage; this was eventually rolled back by the courts, and same-sex couples have been able to marry in California since 2013.

Marriage equality has been recognized in Connecticut since 2008. Iowa legalized same-sex marriage in 2009.

When Illinois followed suit in 2013, it was “exciting” and “shocking,” Zipter said.

At the start of their marriage, neither Zipter nor Forde was particularly wild about the word “wife,” though.

“But, boy, that grew on us really quickly,” Forde said. “It’s a shorthand and people understand what you’re saying.”

The title of “wife” became even more important in 2020 when Zipter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. While Forde said their medical providers have been “nothing but wonderful,” the fact that they’re married — with all the legal and social customs the institution typically encapsulates — provides an added layer of comfort during this health crisis.

“It’s just this extra level of security that I didn’t really think about when we got married,” Forde said.

Zipter was diagnosed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and sometimes Forde wasn’t allowed to be at appointments or treatments due to social distancing protocols. On some occasions, Zipter would be in an exam room without Forde, and health care providers would say, “Oh wait, we have to call your wife and put her on speaker phone, so she hears what’s going on too.”

Zipter added that society has generally become a lot more accepting of same-sex marriage over the last decade or so.

“I just always say ‘my wife’ and no one bats an eye anymore,” she said.

Yet the couple also noted that the nation is facing increasing backlash to LGBTQ rights by a small but vocal minority, particularly in many southern states.

As of early November, the American Civil Liberties Union has tracked more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced across the country.

“While not all of these bills will become law, they all cause harm for LGBTQ people,” the organization said.

Many LGBTQ advocates have also been alarmed by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, rolling back federal abortion protections that had been in place for nearly a half-century.

For a while, Zipter had become “kind of complacent” about same-sex marriage rights, she said.

“Like all right, this is the law of the land now,” she said. “But then they overturned Roe v. Wade. So now I feel nothing is safe.”

In 2012, Chicago attorney Jordan Heinz served as co-counsel leading a team that filed a lawsuit in Cook County challenging the ban on same-sex marriage, on behalf of gay couples who had been denied a marriage license.

While the case became moot once same-sex marriage legislation passed in 2013, the voices of the couples and their children were strong ambassadors for marriage equality.

Since 2013, more than 21,000 same-sex marriage licenses have been issued by the Cook County clerk’s office; nearly 6,200 of them were issued in 2014, the first year the law officially took effect. Just over 1,400 same-sex marriage licenses were issued in Cook County so far this year, according to the clerk’s office.

Heinz recalled that as he argued for these rights years ago as a young attorney, “they weren’t personal to me, in that I didn’t know if marriage was something that was going to happen to me, personally.”

A decade later, he’s now planning his upcoming wedding to fiance Parker Polley.

Heinz proposed to Polley in Colorado at the top of a mountain near Aspen. They were on a hike when Heinz suggested they take a photo together and instead set the camera to record a video. Then Heinz got down on one knee.

He was so nervous he doesn’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of “it was just so wonderful building a life together the last couple of years.”

They plan to wed in July with a wedding in the West Loop, which will likely include around 300 guests.

“So I can finally exercise those rights that I argued for,” said Heinz, who serves as a Lambda Legal board member. “Marriage has such a long, rich history in our society. With that institution of marriage comes a societal imprimatur — like society is blessing the permanence of this relationship.”

He added that it’s kind of poetic that his wedding is planned for roughly a decade after marriage equality was realized in Illinois.

“Finally, 10 years later, all of those words I was using to describe how precious marriage is and how it should be a right everyone should have access to, now all of that is finally becoming real for me,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed.

eleventis@chicagotribune.com