Anne Stockwell

The first meeting of performance artist Joan Spitler and filmmaker Leigh Grode was right out of a romantic comedy. It was 1993, during the Los Angeles gay and lesbian film festival Out on the Screen. Spitler, a lissome redhead, was sitting alone in the festival's cafe when a tall, butch, and handsome stranger walked in.

How is it possible to have spent three decades with your partner and still be in your 40s? By meeting in 10th-grade art class and sticking together from then on.

If there's one man who is essential to the gay brain trust, it's Tony Kushner. His towering, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Angels in America galvanized Americans to make a deeper political and emotional commitment to the value of a gay life. Kushner found that same commitment with author and columnist Mark Harris.

Peter Morrison entered his first Internet chat room when he was 27 years old -- but he wasn't hunting for sex. "I was looking for other gay people, someone who was out and comfortable," he remembers.

Back in 1991 the Internet was only for geeks and grad students. Ron Buckmire, who was studying applied mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, was both. When Buckmire visited Los Angeles that year, his welcoming committee included Dean Elzinga, who was studying mathematical logic at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste." "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." "Only you can prevent forest fires." Since the 1940s the Ad Council has been impacting the culture with slogans like these. Now the venerable nonprofit organization is out to educate teens that antigay slang doesn't cut it anymore -- and to kick-start the effort, it's recruited Hilary Duff.

It's hard to imagine two more all-American boys than Brian Laswell, 34, and Andrew Farris, 36. Together a dozen years, they first met in Indiana when a mutual friend introduced them. They were each other's first relationship.

Jay Mendes, an independent event manager (think the Emmy Awards), was at a club in 2004 when he noticed a sparkling young patron. Three days later, Mendes was asking Van Sao, who was visiting Los Angeles to attend a wedding, "Why don't you move out to L.A. and live with me?"

Fans knew comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer was really in love when her "girlfriend Jenn" started turning up in her onstage monologues. Westenhoefer met marketing pro Jennifer Houston four years ago, when both of them were working on a women's cruise.

Looks can be deceiving, particularly when it comes to Marilyn Twitchell, 83, and Jean Pyatt, 80. Sitting in front of their backyard pool in Los Angeles's Brentwood section, they hardly seem like the spitfires they are.

Brusso and Manelski's relationship involved a child from the start--their 6-year-old daughter, Camille. Manelski, her biological dad, shares custody with Camille's mother. "I always knew it would have to be somebody very special before I'd make the commitment to bring that person into her life," Manelski says.

For many gay couples, marriage means recognition, which isn't something Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler lack. In 1994, Adler sold his first pottery design to Barneys New York, where creative director Simon Doonan presides as one of fashion's keenest wits.

We thought we were winning. Until a few days ago, California's proposed anti-gay constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, was lagging in the polls. Now they're ahead. What happened? Money, an effective ad campaign, and a passionate voter base willing to stop at nothing to get their point across: In their minds, gay marriage is simply wrong.

At a same-sex wedding expo, Heather Matarazzo and Caroline Murphy tell how their romance got started, why tuxes on women are sexy, and why both partners should get to propose.