The Gideonse Bible   With the beard? Yeah, you!

The title of this post comes from the email one of the Jason’s sent me. In its entirety:

For when should we book our flights for the renewal of your vows, now with groovy legal standing? Well done, California Supreme Court.

And that morning, I made a screen grab of my Facebook status update box. Awesome.

In case you’ve been living under a rock — and oddly, some of my acquaintances have been — the California Supreme Court ruled that the bans on gay (or “same-sex”) marriage passed by the legislature in 1977 and by initiative in 2000 are unconstitutional. In other words: Rob and I can now be legally married in the state in which we live. And because California doesn’t have a residency requirement like Massachusetts suddenly realized it did after that state legalized gay marriage in 2004, anyone can come here and get married. And go home and sue the bejeezus out of their state if it refuses to recognize California’s law. It’ll be fun!

In other words: We’ve won. Sorta. I’ll get to that.

I’d been hearing — okay, reading — for a few weeks that the Supreme Court was going to announce it’s decision at the end of May. In the Huff Post, there was an article predicting, based on very good anonymous sources, exactly what happened: The Court would make a broad, landmark ruling in favor of gay marriage and gay rights, even declaring gays and lesbians a suspect class. But you know predictions; they’re often off-base. So, I just did a wait-and-see. Then all of the blogs announced on Wednesday that May 15 would be the day the announce would arrive. At 10am. Online.

I was in my office at Muir when I logged onto the Court’s website. Somehow I did it at exactly the right time, because I got the decision downloaded in a few seconds. And I started reading, then skimming, and I saw this:

Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory. provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.

My officemate walked in as I read it.

“Oh. My. God,” I said.

“What?”

“The Supreme Court of California just legalized gay marriage.”

“When?”

“10 minutes ago.”

“Wow.”

So much for getting any work down for the next few hours. I had to read everything. So, I went to the old reliable gay blogs for their reactions, but also for the reactions of readers. And I knew that Pam Spaulding would dig up the Freeper bleetings, too. So, here is the reax, as they say in the biz:

• Towleroad’s readers are pleased. Andy Towle’s gay marriage tag is here.
• Pam’s House Blend is all over marriage equality. Here’s the initial reaction. Blenders deal with the candidates’ comments here. There’s a post on the WeHo rally. Pam rounds up the hate-reax here. Brace yourself, kiddies. It’s ugly. (And stupid. Why are the anti-gay marriage arguments so devoid of logic?) Here’s the Blend’s marriage equality tag. And they put together a helpful compendium of resources.
• Jeremy at Good As You is always good for a thoughtful evisceration of the anti-gay right’s “arguments.” Here is his “Yay! We won!” post, with a lot of reader reax. Here’s his California tag, which is has a pretty good rundown of our local idiots’ blather.
• JoeMyGod has been really good about keeping up posts on California. Here’s the reax from his readers on the initial announcement. And here’s his tag on marriage equality. I love this post. Go Bears!
• For some reason, Andrew Sullivan doesn’t tag or categorize his posts. It’s bizarre. So, I did a Google search for “california marriage” in his site and got this. But the choice posts can be found in last week’s archive. He makes a bunch of smart, reasoned, logical analyzes of various political statements from those pro and con. Also, he gets emotional.
• DailyKos is always good for reax from the lefties. 319 comments and counting on the initial announcement. Here’s their same-sex marriage tag.
• AmericaBlog readers react here. Comments on the candidates’ reactions here. And Aravosis & Co’s gay marriage tag here. Don’t you wish they’d update their blog software? It’s like 1998 on that site. Sheesh.
• And now for something different: The Gay Patriot, the only real Log Cabin blogger, dissents on a lot of stuff. Here’s the gay marriage category there. But much of it is smart, if based on warrants that I can’t get behind. Whatsoever. But, hey, it’s interesting.

There are, of course, a few excellent videos, too. And then the video of Ellen announcing her marriage to the deafening cheers of her audience — tears. Take a gander. The YouTube video of the Castro after the announcement is so cool — citizen journalism at its best. (If you click on the video and go to its YouTube home, on right is a list of related videos, which are a bunch of videos of the Castro celebration.)

These are pretty awesome, too. The first is Anderson Cooper 360′s report, and the next is Dan Savage eviscerating Tony Perkins, as moderated by Anderson, who was being very fair. Tony Perkins is a liar. I just don’t understand how these people can call themselves Christian and unabashedly lie. Dan Savage calls him on the lies. Whee!

So, the only rub (as it were) to this is, of course, the supposedly 1.1 million signatures that the fundies who oppose equality gathered so that they can put an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment on the California ballot in November. While the recent polls show a 50/50 split on the issue, the fundies are lying and claiming that an “overwhelming” majority of Californian are as terrified of gay people as, say, San Diego demagogues Miles McPherson and Jim Garlow are. Look how they lied in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Reaction among the religious community was generally divided along theological lines, with conservatives condemning the decision and liberals praising it.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Jim Garlow, pastor of the Skyline Church in Rancho San Diego. He called the ruling an example of “judicial activism,” [Yeah, right. Here's a good rebuttal to that nonsense. --Ed.] and said it would inspire more people to join the effort to make such marriages illegal.

“This battle is not over,” he said, pointing to the push to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would only permit marriage between a man and a woman.

If that bid to change the state constitution reaches the ballot, it would be the second time in eight years California voters have been asked their opinion on same-sex marriage. In 2000, 61 percent of voters supported a ballot initiative defining marriage as between a man and woman.

With their ruling, the four judges in yesterday’s majority “said we disregard 61 percent of California,” said Miles McPherson [A black man, McPherson ignores the fact that 90% of Californians opposed interracial marriage when California legalized it in 1948. An ignoramus and a liar, McPherson uses the 61% stat while knowing full well that the number is irrelevant eight years later, which is the reason why they're pushing the amendment now. The shift in public opinion is in favor of marriage equality. --Ed], senior pastor of the Rock Church in Point Loma. “And California is going to have another chance to say, ‘No, we meant what we said.’”

If you really want to hear some lying, try listening to their sermons. Bizarre.

Anyway, the rest of the article has quotes from the awesome party at the Center the night of the decision. This video is a compendium of what happened. I wish it was longer because especially Sen. Christine Kehoe’s speech was amazing. Watching it again, I got teary. While I was there, I was just screaming and yelling and cheering and drinking the free wine! The hors d’oeuvres were nice, too. I ran into a bunch of people, including our local muscle bear news reporter, Eric Collins. There were at least 400 people there, and it was hot and sweaty, but it was among the more thrilling events I’ve experienced in a long time. An electric happiness. It would have been cool if Rob had been there, but he had to teach.

Okay, this has gone on too long. As we figure out what we’re going to do with our marriage, I’ll let y’all know! If you want a reminder what we did three years ago, check out our wedding blog. And please donate whatever you can to Equality For All, the amazing organization that is fighting to keep gay marriage legal in California.