February 12, 2004 changed our world. Mayor Gavin Newsom had just returned from Washington where he was a guest of then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the president’s State of the Union address. He, and the rest of us, witnessed the president voice his support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Returning to San Francisco, Newsom, in an act of amazing boldness and incredible political courage, ordered then-city Assessor Mabel Teng to issue marriage licenses to any couple who wished to marry, regardless of sex or gender identity, an order that Teng was happy to follow. For the next month, nearly 4,000 couples from all over the country flocked to San Francisco to marry in what would be called the "Winter of Love." The national and world press at first reported it as just another example of left coast San Francisco being out of touch with the real world. But as married couples returned home and resumed their lives, the sky didn’t fall, and the national dialogue changed. And the fight for equal LGBT rights took a seismic leap forward. As we head into the 2008 presidential election, civil unions – and equal federal benefits – for LGBT couples is now the accepted standard among all the Democratic candidates, some even having the courage to endorse full marriage equality. We credit Gavin Newsom for changing the national debate for LGBT rights and equality.

The fight for marriage equality is only one example of the courage we have seen in Mayor Newsom over the last four years. More recently, he successfully fought to lessen the cut of the city’s allocation of federal Ryan White CARE Act dollars, personally lobbying now House Speaker Pelosi to keep the cuts from devastating the city’s AIDS programs. He worked with Pelosi and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer in what he told us this week was "a collaborative effort" to spare the city the draconian cuts that were initially proposed.

We support Gavin Newsom because we believe he has done his best to make San Francisco a better place to live. More than 2,000 homeless in San Francisco have been housed since Newsom’s "Care Not Cash" measure took effect, a success acknowledged in a recent television news broadcast interviewing previously homeless people who have benefited from the program. We acknowledge and support the mayor’s other key initiatives on transportation, infrastructure, public safety, sustainability and housing, particularly housing for people with AIDS.

When the mayor stopped by our office Monday, he said that he believes the city is moving in the right direction, with great or modest progress in many areas, including the city’s push to offer universal health care to its uninsured residents and Muni. Crime, particularly the city’s homicide rate, remains a great concern, he said, and he acknowledged that he’s "taking a lot of heat" over the city’s decision to cancel Halloween in the Castro, even as law enforcement prepares for a unprecedented presence in the gay neighborhood this year in case people don’t heed the city’s "Home for Halloween" message that should soon blanket local airwaves.