Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle 2004.  Phyllis Lyon, left, and Del Martin, who had been together for more than 50 years, embrace after their marriage at City Hall.

Phyllis Lyon — half of the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco — stars in a new ad with Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Mayor Gavin Newsom, who officiated, being released Tuesday.

Lyon and her late wife, Del Martin, were among more than 4,000 same-sex couples married at City Hall in 2004, before the state Supreme Court halted the weddings. The longtime lesbian rights activists were married at City Hall again — legally — in June 2008 by Newsom. Martin died two months later.

In the 30-second ad, titled “Phyllis,” Newsom, now the state’s lieutenant governor, and Lyon reminisce while looking at photos — and Chronicle headlines — from those heady days of the same-sex marriage movement.

“Well, it took courage. Well, it did, you know — you had to think about what was going to happen when everybody heard it,” Lyon tells Newsom as they sit next to each other in her home, holding hands. “But, it seemed like it was a better idea to let everybody hear it.”

Newsom’s campaign hopes the ad reinforces the notion that Newsom has the “courage” to take on controversial issues like same-sex marriage, universal health care and gun control. The ad is part of the Newsom campaign’s current “seven-figure” advertising buy. This spot will start running in the Bay Area, then branch out into other markets.

— Joe Garofoli