This should be interesting

According to news reports, a court in California is about to release a decision which strikes down as unconstitutional the proposition passed by the voters that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid under the law. I have yet to see the text of the decision, but I assume that it is based upon the equal protection provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution.

I can understand the political and social pressure that a judge might feel in making this decision, but I still do not see a basis for a ruling like this. California already has a domestic partnership statute that lets gays and lesbians be joined with exactly the same rights as those who are married. The only difference is the name used for the union. The term used cannot by itself constitute a denial of equal protection in my opinion. Were such an argument accepted, it would logically be the equivalent of a ruling that says that the census which asks for racial identification is likewise unconstitutional since it denies whites the ability to call themselves black and vice versa. Why can there not be a different name for the union of a man and woman from that of a man with a man?

The truth is that this argument is a waste of energy as far as I am concerned. If the majority want to conduct the government so that gays have the same rights as others, I do not care what words they use to describe it. Neither should anyone else.