California Gets it Right: Gay Marriage Legal!

California Overturns Ban on Gay Marriage

In striking down the ban, the court said, "In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights."

So they get it. And California, such a place, is now able to offer to its gay citizens the rights it affords to the rest of them.

Johannah texted me the news. I've been cheery ever since. The only cloud on the horizon: a ballot measure for voters in the fall that would overturn the Supreme Court. Let's hope the landslide for the Dems this fall will overwhelm any GOP attempt to reinstate the ban.

Here's Salon.com's article.

Republicans have, in the recent past, used court decisions like this one -- and subsequent initiatives and referendums at the ballot box -- to motivate their party's base to come out and vote. They'll most likely try the same thing in California. A coalition opposed to gay marriage had, even before the decision, already submitted more than 1.1 million signatures in favor of putting an initiative on California's ballot this November that, if passed, would amend the state's constitution and override this decision. But the actual value Republicans could gain from doing this in a state like California, which is dependably blue when it comes to voting for a president, seems small. And there'll be little chance to use the California decision effectively elsewhere: There are only so many times you can have voters decide these sorts of questions, and most of the key swing states have had similar measures on their ballots during one important national election or another this decade.