Romero Hidalgo came home and called Cindy to the bedroom.

"I want to marry you," he said.

Cindy went to the kitchen and turned off the stove where she'd been making dinner for Romero and their three children.

When she returned to the bedroom, she was crying.

"It took you this long to ask me to marry you?" Cindy said.

It had been 15 years since the Hidalgos' first date, at Bear Mountain Pizza in Arvin. Their friendship quickly turned into more as Romero walked Cindy to school every day.

While they were still teenagers, they became parents and moved in with Cindy's mother. But after having two more children, "that's when we got into trouble," Cindy said.

"I noticed he was drifting off on me, getting into things he shouldn't be getting into," she said.

Cindy followed him into a world of drugs and infidelity, trying to pull him back and yet watching her family break apart. The kids went to live with family members. Romero was in and out of jail. Then Cindy ended up there, too.

"I realized, is it really worth losing my girlfriend and my kids?" Romero said.

When Cindy was released after 30 hours in jail, she went to her mother's house, where Romero was waiting for her.

"He said he was willing to change," Cindy said.

That was in 1997. Clean and sober, they went to work fixing their family. They attended Central Church of Christ, Cindy went back to school and Romero went to work for her father. The children were glad to have their parents back.

But there was still something missing, something that would cement their commitment to one another.

Their wedding day, Oct. 17, 1999, marked the first day of their new lives together. The next day, Romero felt like a weight had been lifted off of him.

"After we got married, it totally changed us," Romero said. "I'm for her and she's for me and I feel a lot more open to her."

Marital counseling through the church also helped.

Their three children -- Anthony, 17; Monique, 16; and Andrew, 15 -- felt like they received a brand new family on their parents' wedding day.

"We felt good," Anthony said. "There was no more arguing or fighting. Just a regular family."

Last year, the Hidalgos bought their first house. Cindy, 36, now works as a health education coordinator for Bakersfield Family Medical Center and Romero, 38, works in shipping and receiving for Harbison-Fischer, an oil pump manufacturer.

The couple said marriage gave their family a sense of stability and responsibility. Once they were married, there was no going back to their old lives.

"When you're not married, you can basically go and do your thing. You're not committed to each other," Cindy said.

The Hidalgos said legalizing gay marriage would take away the meaning and sanctity of their marriage. They said it isn't right that a new state law taking effect Jan. 1 will give gay and lesbian couples who register as domestic partners nearly all of the same rights that the Hidalgos received when they got married.

"We know a lot of people who are female and female together and male and male and they have as good of hearts as anybody else," Romero said. "But I don't think it's right."

"I don't think it's right, either," Cindy said. "God made woman and man and that's how it's supposed to be."