SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gay rights pioneer Phyllis Lyon, who with her longtime partner was among the first same-sex couples to marry, has died. Then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to challenge state marriage laws by issuing licenses to everyone in 2004, but the state Supreme Court voided the unions before overturning the state’s ban on gay marriage in 2008. They wed again that year, shortly before her wife, Del Martin, died at the age of 87. The couple had been together more than 50 years. Newsom, California’s governor, announced her death and called her one of his heroes. She died of natural causes at her San Francisco home. Lyon was 95.
