Just married

Dayna speaks about serving as a Sacramento police officer, her belief in Second Amendment gun rights and growing up in Texas.

Tyler tells of how she came to discover the foothills community of Dobbins, how she's got a little bit of redneck in her — with the tattoos to prove it — and is probably "part Republican."

But mostly they talk about Tuesday. That's when the two women were wed in the first gay marriage at the Yuba County Government Center in Marysville and later got into a silver 2006 Dodge Magnum with "Just Married" signs on the windows.

"It's like a kid waiting to go to Disneyland," Dayna Davidson-Sands said of her feelings before the event. "I'm 50 years old, and I feel like a little girl."

Tyler Davidson-Sands, 46, held a cell phone so that her mother, Joyce Rhodes in Southern California, could hear the ceremony that started at 11:30 a.m.

Her mother, celebrating a birthday Tuesday, called the event "the most incredible gift she could ever have," Tyler said.

As a teenager, Tyler had heard her mother talk about what life could mean for a young gay woman.

"She told me it would be hard and might be scary," Tyler recalled.

But that was the bigger world. At her home, with her mother, there was only acceptance.

"She will never condemn somebody who loves somebody," the Dobbins resident said.

Advice the two women, who work as couriers for Fed Ex, said would work well for the critics and questioners of gay marriage.

Dayna said she voted for Supervisor Dan Logue, Republican candidate for the 3rd Assembly District, and is disappointed he opposes gay marriage.

"It's breaks my heart," she said of his stance.

"When they try to legislate against me," Dayna said of officeholders, "I take that personally."

Logue said it's fine if the two women are happy about the ceremony Tuesday. He said he takes issue with the California Supreme Court decision in May that he contends overturns "the law of Californian for 150 years" that marriage is between a man and woman.

Logue also doesn't like the new marriage license forms that replace the words "bride and groom" with "party A and party B."

"It's offensive," he said. "That's just incredible."

Jeffrey Girard, who organized a march Tuesday in Marysville to celebrate the legalization of gay marriage, said, "My only hope for Dan Logue is that he actually talks to his gay constituents."

Tyler said not all gay people in the Yuba-Sutter area would be comfortable getting married as she did Tuesday.

"A lot of individuals will not ever do this in Yuba City," she said. "They are so afraid. They will make any excuse not to do this."

A ballot measure before voters in November would amend the state constitution to limit marriage to a man and woman.

"I'm happy we had today," Tyler said of the wedding ceremony in Marysville. "Hopefully, it doesn't get taken away."

Yuba City resident Kimberley Witkowski was maid of honor for the wedding of her two female co-workers.

"They've been together for 13 years," Witkowski said. "They're in love."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com.