The California Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.

The state high court’s 4-3 ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state Constitution to block same-sex marriage, while the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

The long-awaited court decision stemmed from San Francisco’s highly publicized same-sex weddings, which in 2004 helped spur a conservative backlash in a presidential election year and a national dialogue over gay rights.

Overdue.




  1. badcowboy says:

    Do you know how many weddings I am going to have to go to this summer — including my own — this might have been one of the costliest decisions made by the supreme court 🙂

  2. Alex says:

    Bobbo, you missed my point.

    I don’t care about the 3,000 years of approval, whatever that might be. (I honestly don’t believe that letting gay unions be called gay marriages will bring a new dawn of social equality, just like it didn’t do it in the 60s when blacks were allowed to wash their hands in the same place as whites.)

    My issue is with the power of words in law, and specifically, as you like to point out, *contract* law. If you call a heteronormative coupling “marriage” but a homosexual coupling “newcouplestate”, the implication remains that marriages and newcouplestates are still not the same. What applies to a marriage needn’t necessarily apply to a newcouplestate. (This is the problem of civil unions and marriages – insurance carriers, health care providers, and other bureaucracies regularly and without a problem deny things to one which are rightfully handed to another, simply because one is called one thing and another the other.)

    The simplest solution that leaves no room for hedging or hawing is to simply call both marriage.

  3. Brian says:

    26-

    What’s your point? Straight marriages fail over 50% of the time too.

  4. MikeN says:

    The ban on same-sex marriage makes no sense. Why ban a same-sex union of a man and a woman?

  5. bobbo says:

    #32–Alex==we are so close. Now, if marriage meant what is says in the dictionary==between heteros, and union meant between same sex AND the law said they were the same, then union people could supplement their income by suing insurance co’s who acted in violation of the law.

    Same thing happened with Doctors of Osteopathy (?–it might have started with a “c” though, but not chiropracters) in that they at a Doctor of O, and patients didn’t know what that meant and they wanted to see an Medical Doctor or MD. The training is the same or maybe even the DO’s had MORE training. So, they lobbied and got the law changed so that DO’s could call themselves MD, and now you don’t know the training of the MD in front of you.

    Same with marriage/union==can the label provide details to those who are interested in such things.

    In practical result, with a gay union, everyone would call them married anyway. Language does do that as well.

    As Scott and I argued on his website, I would like another term of marriage/union for old men and younger women and vice versa===IE==all words to be as descriptive as possible. Not homogenized.

  6. McCullough says:

    #7. Marriage is just a legal formality to protect your spouse financially. I lived in “sin” with my spouse for 21 years before we “legitimized’ it, for that very reason. I could care less about this issue. Its just a piece of paper that means nothing otherwise. I don’t wear a ring, (or any jewelry for that matter) and neither of us “belongs” to the other.

  7. Sea Lawyer says:

    Actually I must agree with Bobbo here, words do have meanings, and it’s because of those meanings that this arguing against the supposed ban on “same sex marriage” is silly from the start. Marriage, by definition involves a man and a woman. There is no such thing as marriage between two men or two women, and thusly, you cannot have a ban against something which doesn’t exist. Now, if the definition of marriage is be changed to encompass a larger group of people, that is the prerogative of those who are empowered to change it – the legislature. It is not the role of the court to decide on its own what the word is, or isn’t. Especially when we are talking about something that is a privilege granted through a civil proceeding, and not a right (as many continue to incorrectly claiming).

  8. Stinker says:

    Ahhhh, well just because you can do a thing it does not follow that you should.

    But every bad idea has its time.

  9. tickles says:

    33 –
    anecdotally – although i live, work, and socialize in a heavily gay community, i can count on one hand the number of gay couples i know that make it past the 10 year mark.

    yea, heteros only make it 50% of the time. but 50% is a lot more successful than almost never.

  10. bobbo says:

    #36–McCullough–marriage certainly means more than that==but relax, most likely all good things for you. Financial security can be arranged outside of marriage. Being married brings tax breaks, social approval, intestate survivorship, next of kin status for making medical deicisions, right to visit in hospitals, to speak for and on and on. It took about one week for the marriage ceremony to wear off of my wife==hope your honeymoon lasted longer even if started later (so did mine btw).

  11. McCullough says:

    #41. bobbo- everything you mentioned is what I am talking about. “Marriage” as opposed to love, means zip to me. The state only gives me these “privileges” if I played the game, which I did. I have never felt any different because of a ceremony……

  12. Mister Mustard says:

    >>the reality is that gay relationships almost
    >>never last.

    Gay marriages typically last longer than straight ones.

    >>I could care less about this issue. Its just
    >>a piece of paper that means nothing otherwise.

    Sure it means something, McC. You’re fortunate that neither one of you went into the hospital and had to have decisions made by a legally-sanctioned person (which youse would not have been as boyfriend and girlfriend). Or had one of you died. Try getting that through probate.

    It may not “mean anything” in the cosmic universe, but in real life, it means a fuck of a lot.

    The devil is in the details.

  13. bobbo says:

    #42–McC==whats the confusion. Marriage didn’t change your preference for vanilla ice cream or anything else you love and hate either. Your “feelings” are irrelevant. Marriage is different than shacking up or being in love. It is legal rights, duites, and obligations, as you say, privileges, among other things more subtle.

    That you say you don’t care doesn’t mean or change a thing about anything you hold in such status.

  14. jbenson2 says:

    Thank you California – your timing is perfect. Just a few months before the general election.

    Wow! An election-year bombshell. This will become one of the hot buttons in the general election. The Democrats are in a tough spot – do they put all their chips in to support gay marriages or do they waffle?

    “The state has no right to restrict marriage to just a man and woman.”

    Just excellent. Bring it on! Polygamy and the right to marry my mother… or my father… or my dog.
    .

  15. J says:

    #43 Turd

    Wow! For the first time I think you make a good, logical, and empathetic case and I agree with you.

    Holy shit! My balls just got cold.

  16. Sea Lawyer says:

    #43, both of those examples can already be dealt with through powers of attorney, wills or proxy.

    Now, if you want to cite legitimate things that are difficult to achieve without marriage, then you could go with alimony or family insurance coverage requirements (although I’m not personally in support of the government forcing contract terms on private parties).

  17. Mister Mustard says:

    >>Wow! For the first time I think you make a
    >>good, logical, and empathetic case and I
    >>agree with you. Holy shit! My balls just got
    >>cold

    Your balls would feel like they were packed in dry ice, if you could just get over the “Italians talk using their hands” and “Jews are pushy” things.

    btw, I never said they had big noses.

  18. McCullough says:

    #48. J and Mustard- Get a room already…sheesh!

  19. Mister Mustard says:

    >>both of those examples can already be dealt
    >>with through powers of attorney, wills or proxy.

    Figures a sea lawyer would make that argument. How many young married (or otherwise) people do you suppose have invoked powers of attorney, created wills, or assigned proxy?

    If you’re married, you’re in like Flint. If not, you’re pretty much fucked.

  20. Sea Lawyer says:

    #50, you’ve invalidated my point how?

  21. MotaMan says:

    This story is to herd the homophobic masses into a state of distraction.

    There are more important things than weather or not gays can to whatever is legal and inconsequential.

  22. McCullough says:

    #50. Mustard, bobbo- You guys are making my argument for me…..it was the cheaper way out, once my wife and I had made enough money to worry about turning it over to the state if either of us died, etc.

    Not that I am cheap, of course.

  23. Dallas says:

    I think I’ll go to Starbucks and celebrate.

  24. The Warden says:

    [Duplicate comment deleted. – ed.]

  25. The Warden says:

    Can’t wait to see if companies now stop same sex/domestic partnership benefits now that gays can get married.

    I honestly believe that most gays do not want to get married and this was just an exercise to further legitimize homosexuality as a viable lifestyle.

    What people do in their own bedroom is their business but there are some institutions that should be protected. Marriage is one where it’s between a MAN and a Woman. What is the next step? Letting brother and sister marry? Why not? If two men or two women can get married, then why not let siblings get married if they love each other. Who are we to say they can’t.

    And no, gays getting marry don’t scare me. I just don’t think the erosion of some very basic biological and traditional traditions are being over run by some very political ambitious groups.

    And of course, it will be interesting to see what the gay divorce rate is looking out 5-10 years. I bet it’s pretty high.

  26. Inn Forks says:

    Isn’t it amazing the priorities of our legal systems
    It is being an ordinary and everyday occurance

  27. Mister Ketchup says:

    Well J isn’t me but I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that thinks Mustard is a flake. I wouldn’t think Mustard was a turd burglar since he is obviously a bible thumper. I could be wrong.

  28. Said says:

    I thought gays had it great. Until now, it was against the law to get married and they couldn’t go into the military.

    On the other hand, I wouldn’t want my wife to have lesbian girl friends. They’d eat me out of house and home – so to speak.

  29. Mister Ketchup says:

    [Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]

  30. Mister Mustard says:

    >>I can’t pose as Mister Mustard, I could never be gay.

    Ah, one a them thar card-totin’ homophobes, eh? You know what they say…those who protest the loudest are usually the ones who are taking it up the hershey highway with tomato sauce lube.

    BUSTED!


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