News of the day: California’s top court overturns gay marriage ban:

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that paves the way for allowing same-sex couples in the nation’s biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in an opinion.

Wow. Double Wow. I leave the office for a few hours and all sorts of good news breaks out. As expected, the gay rights, freedom to marry, and civil rights groups are happy about the ruling, and the Christian groups with misleading names like “Traditional Values Coalition” and “Alliance Defense Fund” are threatening more lawsuits.

The ruling itself has some wonderful language that explains exactly how I feel:

“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.

“We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.”

Language like “basic civil right” in the ruling is going to make it hard to fight - no matter what some people’s gods are interpreted as saying. The best bet the other side has now is Proposition 22, which defines marriage in California as being between a man and a woman. Remember, though, that there were plenty of laws limiting interracial marriage until “Loving v. Virginia” made it legal in 1967. The courts ruled correctly there, and ruled correctly today.

Be sure also to check out the Register’s story, which has more details, interviews with locals folks, and a poll.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Atheist, Church/State, Liberal, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.