BOSTON (AP) – A year after they wed in a chapel in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Alexander Westerhoff and Thomas Lang marked the milestone on the steps of the Statehouse, holding a sign reading “Thank you Massachusetts for one year of equality.”

Westerhoff and Lang were among hundreds of gay and lesbian couples who celebrated their first anniversary on Tuesday, one year after Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to recognize same-sex marriages.

The past year has brought greater acceptance, Westerhoff said, and fears have subsided that lawmakers will nullify their marriage.

“I’m very hopeful,” he said. “The more time passes, the more people understand that we just want to be equal.”

Last May 17, couples lined up in city and town halls across the state to apply for marriage licenses. Since then, some 6,200 of them have been handed out to same-sex couples.

Couples marked the anniversary with celebrations across the state, including a group photo with hundreds of couples across the street from the Statehouse, a nearby reception with Mayor Tom Menino, and an evening party at a downtown Boston hotel.

Before the group photo, two evangelists in sandwich boards mingled with the couples, passing out religious pamphlets. A third man began shouting a religious text from the fringes of the crowd, but the was drowned out as the group struck up “All You Need is Love,” by The Beatles.

The crowd erupted as the seven plaintiff couples filed to the front to sit on the ground, and cheered after the photo as two people fired rainbow streamers into the air that unfurled slowly onto the crowd.

Judy Sclarsky, 45, of Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, one of the people who gathered for the photo, said that the last year has ushered in new rights and protections.

“It’s a huge anniversary. We’re going to celebrate this day forever. I’m going to keep coming down to these steps every May 17. It’s an emancipation day for gays and lesbians,” she said.

Opponents of gay marriage also seized the opportunity to stage a new round of protests.

“There’s nothing to celebrate,” said Article 8 Alliance member Nancy Caverly, of Andover. “It’s a sad day for the country.”

The group, which seeks the ouster of the judges who legalized gay marriage in November 2003, protested at City Hall Plaza with a banner reading “Stop Same Sex Marriage” and wearing black armbands reading “R.I.P. Marriage.”

A woman dressed as Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall ripped a copy of the state constitution in half, then stood on it. Brian Camenker, leader of the Article 8 Alliance, said the court used “unintelligible reasoning” to rewrite state law.

“Since that fraudulent ruling, the people of Massachusetts are living under a reign of madness,” he said. “The effect of this perceived law has been the forced normalization of homosexuality on the people of Massachusetts, and harsh intimidation against those who don’t go along.”

Lawmakers compromised on a constitutional amendment last year that would outlaw gay marriage but permit civil unions. The measure needs around round of approval by the Legislature this year to make it onto a statewide ballot in 2006. But it faces an uncertain future, as new pro-gay marriage lawmakers have been elected and some past supporters of the amendment are now thinking about changing their votes.

Gov. Mitt Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage, said the amendment’s fate was in lawmakers’ hands.

“I can encourage them in one way or the other, but the people who listen to me in the legislature are a relatively small group,” he said.

At Northampton City Hall, where well over half the 625 marriage licenses given out over the pas year went to same-sex couples, the scene was far more subdued than one year ago, when hundreds of same-sex couples showed up to apply for marriage licenses.

J.M. Sorrell, a lesbian justice of the peace who has married about 100 gay couples, sat at a table offering sparkling cider, cookies and bottled water to people as they walked into city hall, wishing “Happy Anniversary” to gay couples she recognized.

“I was hoping people would be coming through the doors with flowers for the clerks to thank them for all their help in the past year,” Sorrell said. “But it hasn’t happened yet.”

Johanna Hammer, 31, and her wife, Rebecca Rogouin, 39, both therapists from Northampton, have been together since August 2001. They stopped by City Hall to see Sorrell, who married them last May 17.

Before they were married, the couple celebrated anniversaries for the day they met, a commitment ceremony several years ago, and their civil union in Vermont. But they said their wedding anniversary is perhaps the most important because it marks the point at which their relationship was legally recognized by their home state.

“We weren’t expecting the day to be as powerful as it was,” Hammer said. “But it wound up being a really, really moving day.”

AP-ES-05-17-05 1832EDT