I'm reading the actual California Supreme Court decision, and I'm fascinated by the way that the opinion goes out of its way, over and over, to stress that the reason they are upholding the vote of the people is that same-sex couples aren't losing any legal rights, they are only losing the term "marriage".

I understand what they are saying, and this reads like the most reluctant court decision ever. You get the strong sense that what they really wanted to say was "Look, we don't want to do this, but we live in a state that lets 50.01% of voters change the Constitution on a whim, and the Prop. 8 people did a good job of writing the measure, so we don't really have a choice. Sorry."

That said, I'm still upset by the decision, because saying "you can have legal partnerships - not the quite the same as mixed-gender couples, but still very nice," strikes me as much the same logic as "you can have schools - not the same schools as the white kids, but still very nice."

So, in the battle for same-sex marriage, we've reached the Plessy vs. Ferguson moment. That means we're almost to the end of the 19th century. Only 58 years until we get to Brown vs. Board of Education.