In my last post, I put up photos of California weddings with children in attendance because it was obvious to me that same-sex couples couldn’t until now follow the traditional order of marriage first, kids second.

When parents marry, it of course affects their children. (See also our vlog from a couple of weeks back, on ways to include children in wedding ceremonies.) The mainstream press hadn’t seemed to pick up on this storyline, however, until John Simerman wrote a great article for the Contra Costa Times:

For the children, reactions to the marital frenzy range from been-there, done-that ease among older kids, to excitement at the public cheers and wedding tears. Some . . . said they hope it means unwelcome teasing or questions at school — “Are your parents married?” — can now dissolve with a simple affirmative. . . .

“They said they got married but then they took the license away. I was wondering a lot,” said Chase Crawford-Herold, 8 . . . “I figured out those people that weren’t letting my parents get married were just being a little bit cruel.”

Beyond the sharp divisions over same-sex marriage is a fact that was set in bold relief across the Bay Area early this week: the sheer number of same-sex couples raising families regardless of the state’s view on marriage, and the many children who have grown up with a booster-seat view of a galvanizing issue.

The intense debate that began four years ago in San Francisco has filtered into classrooms. That has helped children of same-sex couples more openly discuss an often sensitive topic, said Meredith Fenton, program director at COLAGE, a national support organization for children of same-sex couples. . . .

Go read the whole thing.

(Thanks to the Bilerico Project and the photographers who made these images available free for use.)