An anniversary of festivity, resolve

There was the usual chaos that comes with a group photo, as several hundred same-sex couples and their kids squeezed onto a Boston Common staircase yesterday. Then someone at the top of the steps started singing the Beatles' ''All You Need is Love." And soon, the whole group was singing along, voices carrying out in unison over the Common.

The snapshot and attendant celebration, organized by same-sex marriage supporters, was one of the most festive observances of the first anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. The gathering, steps from the State House, hearkened back to scenes from a year ago, when the first legalized same-sex marriages in the United States were broadcast across the world, accompanied by loud cheers and feverish protests.

But for the most part, the commemorations were quieter yesterday; they came in private receptions and small, symbolic acts. Tom Lang, 42, and Alex Westerhoff, 36, who were wed a year ago, spent most of the day standing on the State House steps with a handmade sign that read, ''Thank you, Massachusetts, for 1 Year of Equality."

A few blocks away on City Hall Plaza, opponents of same-sex marriage also marked the date. A woman wearing a judge's robe and blond wig -- to resemble Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the November 2003 decision allowing same-sex marriage -- frowned and tore up a fake constitution.

The woman, who wouldn't give her name, was a member of the Article 8 Alliance, a group opposing same-sex marriage. She and about 15 others gathered at City Hall for a press conference, holding signs and wearing black armbands that read, ''RIP marriage."

''The people of Massachusetts are living under a reign of madness," said Brian Camenker, director of the Article 8 Alliance, which takes its name from a section in the state constitution that allows for removal of public officials. The past year, he said, ''has been frightening, illegal, and despotic."

It has been hard for people to express their opposition to same-sex marriage in schools, Camenker said, or protest when schools teach about gay couples. Bridal shops, he said, have been ''forced under intimidation to accommodate same-sex marriage."

''The latest thing, probably the worst," he said, was a booklet he said was distributed at an April 30 Brookline conference on gays in school, sponsored by a gay and lesbian education group. Created by the AIDS Action Committee and titled ''Little Black Book," it contained explicit sexual information.

Organizers of the conference and leaders from the AIDS Action Committee denied that the booklet was distributed at the conference. Brookline school officials said yesterday they are looking into the matter.

Meantime, another prominent player in last year's same-sex marriage debate, Governor Mitt Romney, spent part of yesterday in Washington, D.C., where he testified on state education plans.

As they look back over the last year, Article 8 Alliance members said they feel increasingly alienated these days, as churches and schools accept same-sex marriages and families as facts of life.

But Camenker said that if enough opponents band together, the state could change again. ''Make no mistake about it, this is not over by any means," he said.

Later in the afternoon, at the Unitarian Universalist Association headquarters on Beacon Street, Suzie Attwood, 56, and Carolyn Ryan, 66, agreed that the state has not seen the end of the same-sex marriage debate. They're concerned about continued efforts to change the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, and about the Defense of Marriage acts passed in other states.

''We know we have a long way to go," Attwood said, as she hugged their 10-year-old daughter, Lily. ''We don't take anything for granted."

Still, they had come to share their happiness with other couples and their families, who ate cake and sipped champagne in the building where Julie and Hillary Goodridge, the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the gay marriage decision, were married a year ago. The walls were festooned with heart-shaped anniversary cards from around the country, made by children in Unitarian religious education classes.

''It has become so normal for me and so normal for so many people," marveled the Rev. David Pettee, a Unitarian Universalist minister who had refused to sign state marriage licenses for anyone, saying he didn't approve of discrimination, until Massachusetts allowed same-sex marriages.

At the Parkman House next door, Mayor Thomas M. Menino held a private reception for some gay couples, including many of the Goodridge plaintiffs. Malden residents Marcia Kadish and Tanya McCloskey, both 57, filed in, carrying small bouquets. They were the first legally married gay couple in the United States, they said: Cambridge, May 17, 9:05 a.m.

As the couples spilled out of the parties and gathered by the Common for their group shot, Marla Baldwin, 39, and Allison Faling, 36, from Kansas City, stood and watched with their 11-month-old daughter, Katherine.

They had happened upon the celebration by chance, they said; they were visiting Faling's parents in Needham. But they couldn't escape the sharp contrast to their home state, where the constitution was recently changed to ban same-sex marriage.

''It's making me feel a little tearful," Faling said of the day's events.

''We're seriously considering moving here," Baldwin said.

Maria Sacchetti of the Globe staff contributed to this report.