Singer Melissa Etheridge and former television star Tammy Lynn Michaels entered into a civil partnership in California in 2003. The couple has two children together from a sperm donor.
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George Takei, right, who played Mr. Sulu on Star Trek, married his partner of 21 years, Brad Altman, in September 2008 in a ceremony at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo neighborhood. Bagpipes were present. “Now that the California Supreme Court says our Golden State has marriage equality, beginning today a dream comes true for me,” Altman said in his vows.
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Talk-show queen Ellen DeGeneres married Arrested Development star Portia de Rossi on August 16, 2008, at their home in Beverly Hills following the California Supreme Court’s May 2008 ruling that same sex couples have the right to wed.
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Beneath portraits of Princess Diana and her ancestors, National Book Award-winning author Andrew Solomon and John Habich celebrated a civil partnership on June 30, 2007, at Althorp, the Spencer family estate in Northampton, England. Following their union, Solomon said. “The love that dared not speak its name is now broadcasting.”
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The former fifth wheel on The View married her longtime girlfriend Kelli Carpenter in February 2008 in San Francisco, two weeks after Mayor Gavin Newsom began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. “I want to thank the city of San Francisco for this amazing stance the mayor has taken for all the people here, not just us but all the thousands and thousands of loving, law-abiding couples,” said O’Donnell.
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Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish were one of the U.K.’s first gay couples to tie the knot in a civil-partnership ceremony in December 2005. The turnout at Guildhall in Windsor, England, rivaled that of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles’ wedding, which was held there the previous spring.
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Fashion designer Marc Jacobs got engaged to his ad exec boyfriend Lorenzo Martone in March 2008. The fashionable duo has yet to set a wedding date, but they've announced that they want to adopt a baby girl, which means the best-dressed baby search is as good as over.
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Barneys creative director Simon Doonan, right, got hitched to interior designer Jonathan Adler at the Cliff Hotel in San Francisco in September 2008.
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Cabaret star Alan Cumming married graphic artist Grant Shaffer on January 6, 2007, in Royal Naval College near London. “Not only are we so happy to be able to celebrate our love for each other, but also to be able to do it in a country that properly recognizes the rights of same-sex couples,” Cumming said.
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Former Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, left, tied the knot with his partner, Internet entrepreneur Andy Cowles, in a private ceremony in March 2006. The 30-year-old singer made an official commitment to Andy in Las Vegas three years ago. The couple then had the civil partnership ceremony to put their union on a legal footing.
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