Gay Marriage Fight or Flight

There was research reported recently that same-sex couples tend to have fairer arguments within their relationships than do straight couples.

That is not to say we don't argue. We do. Even when there is nothing to fight about. Take this funny example:

CA Supremes Turn Down Stay

The California Supreme Court today unanimously decided to deny a request for a stay of execution of the court's May ruling that California may not discriminate against same sex couples in allowing them to marry. In a separate vote, the court declined to reconsider its decision.

These two decisions come as a blow to two anti-gay-marriage groups and 11 states who have petitioned the court to stay its decision pending an anti-gay-marriage initiative on the November ballot in California.

30 Day Gay Wedding Planner

23/6, a satirical news site has provided it's 30 Day Gay Wedding Planner to assist all those rushing to the alter on June 14 in California.

The Triumph of Liberty for All

Greg Berlanti, along with other LGBT celebrities, was asked by The Advocate, the LGBT news magazine, what his reaction was to Thursday's gay marriage ruling. He is an openly gay executive producer and writer behind ABC's Brother and Sisters and many other television shows.

Berlanti commented on how sad it is that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton could celebrate this victory with us, given their political stance on gay marriage. Both prefer civil unions to gay marriage.

In contrast, he offers the speech by Spain's Prime Minister, Jose Zapatero, upon the passage of Spain's historic gay rights legislation, which was equally demonized by the Religious Right in Spain.

We are not legislating, honorable members, for people far away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity for happiness to our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and our families: at the same time we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.

In the poem 'The Family,' our [gay] poet Luis Cernuda was sorry because, 'How does man live in denial in vain by giving rules that prohibit and condemn?'

Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who, during many years have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity, and restores their liberty.

It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone's triumph. It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet: because it is the triumph of Liberty. Their victory makes all of us (even those who oppose the law) better people, it makes our society better. Honorable members, there is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the potential to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: this law enhances and respects marriage.

Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in a profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I wish to express that, like other reforms to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil, that its only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society.

With the approval of this bill, our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our mothers had less rights than our fathers, or if we tell them that people had to stay married against their will even though they were unable to share their lives. Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson: Every right gained, each access to liberty has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise.

What a pity our politicians are found to be so lacking in comparison to Mr. Zapatero. He understands that Liberty is best judged by how a nation treats its minority, not the majority.

Could we substitute Mr. Zapatero by write-in vote?

Slow Dancing Out Loud

"This day is about people who can begin to live their lives out loud." Mayor Gavin Newsom was celebrating the California Supreme Court decision legalizing marriage for everyone regardless of sexual orientation.

Mayor Newsom's words resonate with me. I've not been able to forget this concept of living one's life out loud. It is amazing how much power a word or phrase has.

I'm gay, but I'm single and don't plan to get married. Still the court decision impacted me in a personal and substantive way.

The reason that I moved from Kansas City, Missouri to San Francisco, California was so that I could live my life out loud, although I didn't have the concept to match the feelings last year.

I was weary of having to decide if I should remain silent about my sexual orientation in employment. I was weary to the bone of the Bible Belt. I no longer intended to endure that silent oppression that loudly voiced itself in political life there.

The Kansas City metro area was once a free and liberal place. At least it was as compared to the small Kansas town in which I grew up. I once was enamored with its flowered boulevards and many statues and fountains. In the end, the city's facial beauty could no longer distract me from the increasingly intolerant social and political realities there.

As the Religious Right took control of the GOP, the social cancer that it brought took hold and prospered in the Plains along with the wheat.

Being in the heart of the Bible Belt, many people became more judgmental against gays and lesbians and saw no problem enforcing their religious beliefs on us in the government and increasingly, in social settings. It was an often silent, but invidious oppression.

In sharp contrast, I felt much more accepted and able to live freely in conservative Arizona than I ever did in Missouri or Kansas. When I returned to Missouri after grad school in Arizona, I never really felt at home again.

I felt as though I were holding my breath, waiting for something; waiting for I knew not what. I could never fully relax.

Finally, when the opportunity arose, I took a chance and moved from a Red State to a Blue State. I moved to what is considered the most liberal city in the U.S. if not the world.

And after Thursday's court decision establishing sexual orientation as a protected class, along with race, religion and sex, at long last, I could relax. I let go of my long-bated breath. Even with all the protections in place in California, for the first time in my adult life, I began to breath easily and deeply.

I participated in the celebratory party in the Castro Thursday night, where the entire LGBT community collectively exhaled. I couldn't help but compare it to Kansas City, where this spontaneous celebration and family feeling could never have happened. I have many gay friends there who still cannot live their lives fully out loud.

I read reactions from around the country, including one from a man in Texas who dared not to hope. But he was joyous that somewhere there was finally justice. That gave him permission to hope just a little that he would see a change someday in his home state. It was clear that he still could not live out loud.

The state argued that the only difference between domestic partnership and marriage was just a word. It implied that the word had no legal substance, no legal value, no power. Even the dissenters in Thursday's opinion didn't buy that the word had no value. Certainly those who oppose gay marriage don't think that the word has no substantive value.

If it is just a word, what a word it is to carry so much meaning, hope and acceptance for those of us who heard it applied to us for the first time in this state. The value, the power of that word, marriage, represented decades of fighting for this moment by the couples who brought the lawsuit. It had the power to make a crowd shout so loudly that the gleeful din could be heard for blocks around the Castro. It had legal substance in that for the first time known in this nation, we became a protected class where the state could not deny us our rights unless it could meet the strictest level of review by the courts.

That word means so much more than just a marriage license to us. For gays and lesbians everywhere, marriage is a homograph. For us, it means we are a huge step closer to being equal - equal in treatment by our government and equal in society for our love. Maybe a huge step closer to one day being fully accepted and respected in this country. And it means we now have a substantial set of state rights under the same name as everyone else in the state.

This one word has the power to reach across the nation and around the world. Now, other gays and lesbians can come to California and get legally married without residency requirements.

There will be a veritable stampede of gays and lesbians rushing to the alter in the event that victory is snatched from us in November. There is still a ballot initiative to amend the Constitution, which means that the struggle continues.

Yesterday I was given reason to hope even where the ballot initiative was concerned. I have a surrogate family in the Bay Area; it is my late step-father's sister and her husband. They consider me family and I, them.

I never felt that they were narrow-minded nor that my being gay was a problem for them. But I wondered how they felt about the gay marriage decision.

My step-aunt is liberal, so I really didn't figure it phased her at all. But my step-uncle is conservative and they are both Catholic. There was room for a little doubt.

My blood-relation uncle and aunt also live in this area and I don't really interact with them due to their Southern Baptist religion. In fact, my uncle is a retired Southern Baptist minister. They love me and I love them, but I don't care to have their religious prejudice in my life.

I figured my mother could do without the barrage. My uncle's constant braying about my lost soul got on her last nerve. My uncle promised my mother that he would never bring up the subject with me, but my uncle feels compelled to raise the subject when talking with her. She holds her own, but doesn't care to debate the subject when she knows they won't change their fractured view of homosexuals.

My aunt once called me when I was on a business trip to San Francisco to warn me. She was deeply concerned that I'd contract MRSA, which had just started coming to public consciousness.

She had good intentions, but I couldn't help but laugh. Her prejudice was showing like a slip peeking out from under her conservative dress.

Despite living in the Bay Area for over 40 years, she had no better idea of what constituted a gay man or his habits than someone in the Arctic Circle.

Of course, being gay and being saved are mutually exclusive in her religion. From the conversation, I quickly grasped her stereotype. She believed that all gay men danced together shirtless (undoubtedly ass-less leather chaps were her worst fear).

Since I am gay, she reasoned that I could not help myself in my unfettered depravity and go dancing shirtless with other gay men in some dark, crowded gay bar. Since MRSA was contracted by skin-to-skin contact, she feared that one shirtless slow dance might just kill me before I got saved.

I knew that her call was out of love for me. I assured her that I wasn't even visiting a gay bar while in town. In fact, I was quite a few miles from San Francisco in Burlingame, preparing for my meeting the next day. I had neither the time nor the inclination to go dancing.

I mentioned that because of my expanding waistline, I was not inclined to expose my torso, depraved dancing or not. I even reminded her that my mother and I are the only two American Indians without rhythm.

She wasn't at all convinced. "Keep your shirt on," she instructed.

Because of my Southern Baptist relatives, I couldn't help but wonder about my step-uncle's feelings or fears about gay marriage.

I needn't have worried. In talking with my step-uncle, he said, "I don't see where it affects me or my marriage. I don't have a problem with it."

My eyes welled up as I let loose of a different level of bated breath. Unlike my Southern Baptist aunt and uncle, he gets it.

Like the gay man in Texas, I have hope. I can finally live my life out loud, even as a single gay man, all because of one word.

I think that I'll go have a depraved, shirtless slow dance at a gay wedding to celebrate. Surely my auntie would agree that you can't live life out loud more than that.

Can a Constitutional Amendment Against Gay Marriage Survive?

After yesterday's momentous California Supreme Court decision, everyone now begins looking at the constitutional amendment initiative as the next fight. Even if it passes, I think that yesterday's decision fundamentally changed the analysis and very character of the initiative under federal equal protection law.

The question now becomes: If the constitutional amendment passes, can it survive federal equal protection claims?

The California ruling of the court was far reaching and well thought out. The court put the chips exactly where they wanted them for a reason.

The court held:

1) As a matter of California constitutional law, sexual orientation is a suspect class.

2) As a matter of California constitutional law, judicial review of sexual orientation equal protection claims will use strict scrutiny.

3) As a matter of California constitutional law, the state may not deny gays and lesbians the fundamental right of marriage.

Under federal law (and the California constitution), only the California Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the state's constitutional law. Federal law must respect and rely on it in deciding matters that require use of state law. In other words, federal courts cannot change or overrule state constitutional law unless it violates the U.S. Constitution.

On May 14, the court decision becomes final and is incorporated into the law of California. As of that date, gays and lesbians will be given the ability to exercise the fundamental right to marry anyone of their choice, regardless of sexual orientation.

The California Supreme Court wisely framed the entire initiative in context of Romer v. Evans. In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state constitutional amendment could not remove substantive rights from a minority group based on mere animus against a class of citizens. The U.S. Supreme Court used rational basis, the lowest scrutiny level and still came up with an equal protection violation by the Colorado voters.

Thanks to the California Supreme Court, as a matter of California constitutional law, the right to marry is a fundamental right that cannot be denied on the basis of sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is a protected (suspect) class.

The court' decision becomes final on April 14, 2008. After that, gays and lesbians can and will exercise their fundamental right to marry, which they will enjoy at least until the initiative passes, if it does.

The initiative will not change the protected class status of sexual orientation. It doesn't change the strict scrutiny standard to be used within California constitutional cases. Those holdings will still be California law even if the initative passes.

If the initiative passes, the the U.S. Supreme Court will be forced to acknowledge that the voters of California did not only exactly what the Colorado voters did in 1992 - the California voters did something worse. California voters will have removed an established substantive right from gays and lesbians, a minority group, based on sexual orientation, a protected class under California constitutional law. Sexual orientation is the only distinctive factor in the choice to discriminate. The right to marriage is no longer theoretical as applied to gays and lesbians.

Here's why:

The U.S. Supreme Court majority waffled in its Lawrence v. Texas decision on the issue of whether their due process analysis applied to gay marriage specifically. They declined to say if it did or did not. They also declined to find gays and lesbians a suspect class. The decision turned on the point that the majority cannot penalize a class of persons of substantive legal rights under the federal constitution, specifically, using due process with a rational basis level of scrutiny.

The majority opinion in Lawrence declines to provide an equal protection analysis. Instead, it is in Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion that equal protection is applied and she finds the same result.

The question of whether gays had the right to marry had yet to be decided by any state courts at the time of the Romer v. Evans decision in 1996. Vermont's civil union case wouldn't be decided by the Vermont Supreme Court until 1999.

By the time of the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003, Vermont has decided that civil unions are required. Massachusetts is in the process of deciding its case for gay marriage, ultimately decided in 2004, after Lawrence.

Under federal law, at the time of Lawrence, it wasn't clear if gay marriage would be a substantive or fundamental right or not, yet (the distinction being that straight marriage was a fundamental right, but that gay marriage had not been decided yet as a right by the federal courts). The court declined to address that issue as it wasn't at stake in the case. But it was on everyone's mind at the timel

Justice O'Connor explicitly states in her concurring opinion that, "Texas cannot assert any legitimate state interest here, such as national security or preserving the traditional institution of marriage." To her way of thinking in 2003, preserving traditional marriage is sufficient to pass muster under rational basis review in federal equal protection law.

In Lawrence, the Court found that a liberty interest was at stake and that the state statute as applied only to homosexuals was unconstitutional under due process. It declined to decide the issue under equal protection as it found sufficient reason with due process. Again, it declined to hold that sexual orientation was a protected class.

The California Supreme Court heard the U.S. Supreme Court in particular to its Romer and Lawrence decisions and handled the messy details. The court declined to find that gays and lesbians have the right to gay marriage. Instead, they held that the fundamental right of marriage cannot be denied to gays and lesbians on the basis of sexual orientation, a suspect, or protected, class.

There is no nebulous liberty interest at stake here. The California court clearly finds that the right to marry is still a fundamental right, concurrent with its prior decisions in marriage cases.

The California court churns through each of the state's stated interests in denying gays the right to marry and dismisses each one by one. In short, where O'Connor felt there were numerous reasons to protect marriage from gays and lesbians, all the stated arguments were insufficient to the California court under the state's constitution and law.

The court went out of its way to note that it declined to create a new right. Instead, it found that denying of the existing fundamental right of marriage based on sexual orientation was unconstitutional under state equal protection. As a matter of state law, it is an existing fundamental right to marry that is being taken away.

Further, as a matter of California constitutional law, sexual orientation is a suspect class. It is so suspect that it received the strict scrutiny standard. These two holdings survive the initiative. This ties up the Lawrence rationale in that it is equal protection, not due process that is at stake (although an argument could be made under due process, as well).

Therefore, if the initiative passes, the majority will be seeking not only to deny a fundamental right to a minority, it is seeking to deny that right to a suspect class under California law. It is the worst type of equal protection violation just based on the face of it.

It hearkens to the Court majorities' shock in Romer at the electorate's animus against gays and lesbians that could be the only deciding factor. Here, the voters will have decided to take away a fundamental right due to the animus the public feels toward homosexuals.

Of course, one might posit that it is the sanctity of marriage or some other fuzzy argument that has no substantive logic or weight. It wouldn't be enough to sustain the amendment based on Romer and Lawrence.

Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court has to acknowledge that California voters removed an existing right from a protected class, as defined by California constitutional law. The court doesn't even have to define sexual orientation as a suspect class - it has been done for them using state law.

The distinctions from the Romer case cannot be ignored, either. The breadth of the constitutional amendment in Romer was staggering to the majority. It denied the LGBT community due process almost entirely where protection of their civil rights were concerned. Here, the state has provided domestic partnership laws that mirror civil marriage laws. The scope of the discrimination is different. The denial of due process in Romer isn't claimed here, either.

One might argue, as the state did in this case, that the difference is semantic and there are social reasons to separate gays and lesbians from heterosexual marriages. But logically, there is a difference no matter how prettily you wrap the package. If there were no difference between domestic partnership and marriage, why would we have people so vehemently wish to deny gays and lesbians this right? Obviously, the opponents see value in keeping marriage for heterosexuals by their very action to deny it.

The California court goes to great length to analyze the argument and is persuaded that separate but equal still denies gays and lesbians full equality under the law due to the difference in value of the name.

I don't think that the distinctions from Romer are enough to overcome the similarities, especially in how the California Supreme Court kept its decision based on state law and not federal, and in how it set up the initiative issue for appeal.

How can the state even mount a facially reasonable defense for itself that would be successful against the rational basis test? None of the state's or other parties' arguments against the court's holdings were sufficient. How can they be sufficient under the federal rational basis standard if the state's supreme court has found that they were insufficient as a matter of state law already, regardless of the difference in standards? It makes the federal court look bad from the get go if it doesn't side with the state court.

That doesn't mean that the U.S. Supreme Court can't overrule its Romer v. Evans decision. The justices on the court have changed substantively since the 1996 Romer court decided that case.

It could weasel some rational basis out of thin air. But if it does, it will be denying more established civil rights law than just Romer.

In fact, it would destabilize federal equal protection law in general to twist it that much. If a majority can take away substantive rights against a protected class by simple majority initiative based on some contrived excuse, then what protection does anyone have under the federal constitution?

I think what is more likely is that a constitutional amendment to deny gays and lesbians the right to marriage would be overturned by the federal district court or 9th Circuit federal appellate court using Romer v. Evans.

The U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to be anxious to open the can of worms presented to it by the California Supreme Court. Most likely, it would deny certiorari based on Romer v. Evans being adequately applied by the lower courts. Additionally, there wouldn't be enough diversity of opinion among the circuits to justify Supreme Court intervention.

Never say never, but it is unreasonable to believe that the initiative to amend the California Constitution would survive federal scrutiny based on existing equal protection law.

Reaction to Gay Marriage Decision

If you don't get the impact that yesterday's California Supreme Court decision has on gays and lesbians, watch this video. Push it to 3:30 to see one of the litigant's reaction. I was a little verklempt after watching it.

Beach Blanket Babylon Updated

Beach Blanket Babylon, the San Francisco institution, a campy musical theatre gala known for its big hats and wigs, wasted no time in updating its show to include the same-sex marriage decision.

Last night, the wonderfully flamboyant gay character in pink 18th Century French costume with enormous pink hair sang, "I got married in the morning! ... I'm still a two-some, thanks to Mayor Newsom, the Supreme Court saw things my way!"

The theatre troupe often includes recent events in its shows.

Note that clicking the above link to the BBB site will automatically start a loud rendition of "San Francisco (Open Your Golden Gate)". Other pictures and show information are available on the website.

Love Transcends All

It was fairly certain that with something as big as legalized same-sex marriage rights recognized today by the California Supreme Court, that the Castro would erupt into an impromptu party. That's how we roll.

The block on Castro between Market and 18th Street were cordoned off and a stage set up.

Speeches were given that received cheers that reverberated into the surrounding neighborhood.



When the speeches were finished, a d.j. started some techno spinning and the crowd danced and milled around until late into the evening.



The only downside are all the media helicopters still flying around noisily at 11:30 p.m. It sounds like a war zone.

Despite the noise, it's hard to imagine this happening anywhere else tonight in quite this intimate or peaceable a manner.

We're one large family. Tonight, we celebrate the right to have that fact recognized by our state.

It is the sort of thing that the Castro can do that the Village in NYC and WeHo in LA can't quite duplicate.

To think: The fight for equality in California started with Harvey Milk in San Francisco, was prodded by Mayor Gavin Newsom in San Francisco in 2004 and was decided by the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. It is very much a San Francisco story.

The Mayor of Castro Street would be so proud of all that has been accomplished since he won his election in 1977 and died for the cause in 1978. We completed the fight in California 31 years after his historic win as the first openly gay elected official in the world.

This one is for you, Harvey Milk. Thanks for the showing us that we could live openly and be accepted. Were it not for your faith in people, we wouldn't have this historic day.

Brave New World

The New York Times Magazine has an article about young gay men getting married in Massachusetts and even gay divorce.

What a brave new world we live in. When I knew I was gay, I figured marriage was something that I gave up with the closet door.

I'm still not sure that I'm interested in marriage. I really think that I should find the guy before getting married, you know?

But the twenty-somethings hitting the post-college pavement have no such qualms. Many of them have the same expectations of their straight peers - marriage, kids, retirement together. Some do not.

Many want engagement parties and all the things that come with making the commitment. When gay marriage turns to gay divorce, the pain and feeling of failure is the same as that felt by their straight counterparts, too. Perhaps even more guilt comes with it as marriage is a recently won right still in only one state.

As the article points out, men of my age group tended to reject the heterosexual model of marriage. Was it a response to the rejection we felt from heterosexual society or were we charting new territory? Who knows?

We oldsters tend to require emotional fidelity more than sexual fidelity. The greedy youth want both. Are they setting themselves up for disappointment or are they onto something that we missed?

We were cynical. Now the young can be optimistic. I guess that is progress. Maybe it is even a good thing.

Do the Right Thing

The Advocate has an interesting article on San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom, this month. It covers the reason he decided to allow gay marriages on February 12, 2004.

He had just returned from George Bush's inauguration in which Bush included in his speech his party's spew about the "sanctity of marriage" and protection of America from "activist" judges.

He told his staff to find a way to allow gays and lesbians to marry. They initially thought that they would marry a few couples. No one expected 4,000 couples to line up to be married in the one month that same-sex marriage was allowed in San Francisco.

The California Supreme Court is now deciding the fallout of the San Francisco marriages and whether the prohibition of marrage for same-sex couples is constitutional. The City of San Francisco is one of the parties in the combined litigation.

One of the arguments that the justices mentioned was whether the time is right to consider the question or whether gays and lesbians should be made to wait until the rest of the country catches up. Newsom's response is:

“When is the right time? There never is a right time. Mid-term congressional election? Not the right time -- we have a chance to take back the House. The next presidential election? Not the right time -- we have a chance to possibly win. It’s never the right time. We need to get over these stale arguments. If you believe in something, do it. And do it with conviction. And if you screw up, learn from it, admit your mistakes and failures, and move forward in a more thoughtful way.”

Newsom suffered political fall-out within his own party from his decision. Barack Obama asked him to throw fund raisers for him, but refused to be photographed with him in 2006 and again this election cycle. Other Democrats did much the same and worse following the 2004 marriages. Hillary Clinton is one of the few Democrats to have had pictures taken with Gavin Newsom.

It appears to gays and lesbians that Democrats think that they are fine for fund-raising, but they don't want to take any political risk where gay and lesbian issues are concerned. In demonstration of their lack of competence of gay and lesbian issues, they were shocked at the backlash from the LGBT community when the House passed a bill to extend the definition of hate crimes to include gays, lesbians and bisexuals, but not transgendered persons.

Barney Frank, the gay Congressman who sponsored the bill, felt that getting the vote through on 3 of the 4 groups was progress. It was politics over substance and the LGBT community knew it. There was no way the bill would get approved by the Senate nor signed by the President. It was a meaningless gesture and that was spoiled by Frank's and the Democratic majority's willingness to throw the transgender community to the wolves.

What the LGBT community understood was that it was another example of Democrats' political expediency by offering a meaningless bone to the community before a election fundraisers began. It would have been better to do nothing than to try to split the LGBT community's unity.

It is ironic that Republicans can stubbornly stand by their principles, at least on social issues, but Democrats continue to be moral cowards. Both Clinton and Obama do not support gay marriage equality for the LGBT community. They haven't the political cojones to deliver on what they profess to be one of the chief principles of their party: equality for minority groups.

Even as Obama talked about racial issues this past week, I couldn't overlook his moral cowardice on gay issues. It sounds hauntingly familiar to his fear of being photographed with Gavin Newsom.

Obama has never appeared at gay functions, so far as I can find. I can't think of a single photograph with him and any group of gay people. Instead, he sends his staff to talk to the gay community. He never addresses the community directly.

He claims to be supportive of gay rights. His campaign policies are perhaps a tad better than Clinton's. But is it just talk? With the Rev. Wright debate this past fortnight, gays and lesbians are reminded that most black churches have not been supportive of gays and lesbians, much less their rights.

In contrast, while Clinton doesn't support full gay marriage, she often appears with gay people and at gay functions. There isn't that nagging question of moral cowardice as with Obama, except on the gay marriage issue alone. She is politically expedient, but she has always been there to support gay rights in the Senate in every other respect. That is why gays and lesbians have continued to support Clinton over Obama even if we wished she had the cojones to support gay marriage.

All the more reason to enjoy the refreshing breeze from someone like Gavin Newsom who believes in doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. How sad it is that it used to be the rule instead of the exception in the American polity.

In re Marriage Cases

This morning, I watched the televised coverage of the California Supreme Court's oral arguments on the same-sex marriage cases, In re Marriage Cases.

Being new to California, I'm not aware enough of the reputations of the justices. It was interesting to watch without knowing the personal histories and decisions by the justices.

Some gave away which side to which they leaned, while several asked pointed questions to both sides of the cases. Just as in the U.S. Supreme Court, even if you know the leanings of a justice, you still can't always predict the outcome.

I have no idea which way the court will decide.

They asked enough questions about leaving it to the legislature to handle, but also noted that the legislature has twice voted to extend marriage to gays and lesbians only to have it vetoed by the governor. It isn't so much a tyranny of the majority as the tyranny of one; the court is being asked to basically break a political stalemate.

The court did seem to struggle with taking a former holding regarding interracial marriages from 1948 and extend the rationale to this case. Likewise, there was some reluctance to grant protected class status to gays and lesbians.

Finally, several seemed to buy the State's position that the gender discrimination in the opposite-sex statute was in fact, gender neutral because both sexes have equal rights in regards to getting married, except to someone of the same gender.

It will be interesting to see the decision when it comes out. It isn't due for 90 days.