Gay people can get married in California! Yay! Our state supremes said it’s unconstitutional to deny gay couples the civil rights of marriage. WOO HOO!
But don’t get too relieved — there’s an amendment to the state constitution on the ballot which would limit marriage to het couples. WEAK.
Though, as Mark Morford points out, the court that made the ruling is hardly a hippy-dippy bastion of liberalism:
it was one thing for an uppity and slick San Francisco mayor to try and make a name for himself and enter the gay history books by allowing all those happy gay people to stand in the rain back in 2004 and get married in City Hall, only to have it all annuled by the courts.
But it is quite another when a powerhouse seven-member Supreme Court — six of whom are moderate Repubicans — of the largest and most potent state in the union says, hey, you know what? It appears we’ve had it wrong all along. It appears there is actually nothing the slightest bit wrong or unlawful or even dangerous about allowing people of the same gender to buy overpriced formalwear and drink way too much champagne and dance to crappy ’80s power ballads in the Chardonnay Room of a low-rent winery up in Napa, and call it a wedding.
Who can argue with that? Hell, to this very day, cultural conservatives still have no idea exactly why they hate gay marriage. There is still zero articulation. There is a complete lack of fact or understanding and I have yet to meet a single person of any political stripe who can adequately explain exactly why gay marriage is so dangerous, or who’s threatened, or how. Same as it ever was? Yes. Only now, their misunderstanding feels quite a bit less dangerous, and far more pathetic.
But regardless, we need to trounce that amendment at the polls this fall. If you aren’t already registered to vote, go register and mark your calendar to vote!!
If you are registered, be sure to vote in November! Sure, California pretty much always goes Dem in the presidential race, but when it comes to the state measures, every single vote matters. There are enough right-wingers out in the central valley and down in Orange County to give us liberals a run for our money.
Vote early, vote often!
I’m somewhat blithely assuming all my readers are in favor of gay marriage. If you’re not and you’re a reader here, um, you are really weird. Please comment so I can marvel at your weirdness more directly. Thanks!
