California's Same-Sex Marriage Ban Overturned

From CNN:

"There can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state's general legislative policy and preference," said the 120-page ruling.

It said that the state law's language "limiting the designation of marriage to a 'union between a man and a woman' is unconstitutional, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples."

Those who have been working so hard, like Senator David Vitter

to protect traditional marriage as being between one man and one woman

have always puzzled me. Didn't they read the bible? Many of the biblical kings had more than one wife. And even Senator Vitter practiced the time-old custom have having only one wife, but women on the side.

Marriage has been an economic and political event throughout history. It was a way to establish (at least publicly) the parentage of children, a way to make truces between families, and to pass on property and wealth. The idea of love as the basis of marriage is rather recent. In India today arranged marriages are still common and love develops or not as the marriage progresses.

So if two people of the same sex fall in love and want to share a home, and to share medical insurance and all the other things that men and women share in marriage, I fail to see the harm in that.

It seems there is a distinction here between religiously sanctioned marriages and state sanctioned marriages. I strongly support the idea that various religions - which people join voluntarily - can make their own restrictions about who they want to marry. But the state should not discriminate against people who want to share their lives together simply because they are both men or both women.

Just as bans against interracial marriages seem outrageous today, the bans against same sex marriages will seem outrageous 30 years in the future.