This gay couple celebrated in style the historic moment marriage equality was legalized

Emory Etheridge and James Muller met in San Francisco as the question of marriage equality roiled state courts across the country. The couple eloped just nine months after they met in 2015, fearing their friends wouldn’t approve. Soon enough, they’d have cause for a double celebration.

They met by way of the late, great queen of San Francisco nightlife, Heklina. Emory explained it to LGBTQ Nation.

Heklina was an old friend, and I was doing backup for her. It was a Stevie Nicks tribute night, and that’s where I met James, who was also doing the show. I’m not like a dancer, but we both used to be in good shape because we were both single back then.

It was a dream sequence for a song called If Anyone Falls, and we were all wearing chaps, all in leather and I had a shaved Mohawk, and we created a horse on stage with human bodies.

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A year later, we reprised the whole number for another show at Oasis, and it was after we were married, so that was kind of fun. Heklina brought us on stage and announced that. It was really nice.

A lot of my friends are drag queens and part of that world, but James and I, we’d never crossed paths before that. So Heklina is responsible for us meeting and getting married.

We married at City Hall. It was very special. But we eloped. We didn’t tell anyone because we thought it was too soon. We got married like nine months after we met, and I was like, I think it’d be too soon to tell anyone. I knew my best friend was going to give me s**t for that. We’ll tell people when we’ve passed the year mark, whatever.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images James Muller and Emory Etheridge in San Francisco’s Castro District on the day the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality in 2015.

The day we took the picture was the day the Supreme Court came out with their decision making marriage equality the law of the land. And it was this instant celebration in the Castro. It felt so great to be in that moment, and I was very, very grateful to be there.

I had made those shirts before, and the two hats and the tulle, they were just in the closet. It wasn’t a long time since James and I had been married, so it was fun, because it was still like fresh and new and exciting. And we just went to Castro to celebrate.

To live here when that happened for marriage equality was like living history. And it was really nice to come out with a Supreme Court decision!

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