A couple additional comments, which I will number serially from my previous comments:

4. Chief justice George’s majority opinion reeks of judicial imperialism and rarely takes notice of those pesky yahoos called citizens. When it does, it deals with them dishonestly.

For example, George writes: “If civil marriage were an institution whose only role was to serve the interests of society, it reasonably could be asserted that the state should have full authority to decide whether to establish or abolish the institution of marriage.” (62 (emphasis added).) By “the state,” George in fact means California’s citizens, whether acting by voter initiative or through their legislators (and he posits an unattractive hypothetical argument that defenders of traditional marriage need not, and apparently did not, make). So we have George, in the course of a flagrantly illegitimate exercise of state power, trying to cast aspersions on the legitimate power of citizens.

Even more brazenly, George later tries to defend his usurpation of the “people’s will” by arguing that the “provisions of the California Constitution itself constitute the ultimate expression of the people’s will.” (113) In a sense, yes—when they are faithfully and properly interpreted and applied. But not when judicial activists like George stretch their terms beyond what the people who adopted them could possibly have meant.

5. Given the high likelihood that the California Marriage Protection Act—a voter-sponsored initiative that would amend the California Constitution to provide expressly that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”—will be on the state ballot in November, the sensible course of action would be for the state supreme court to stay its ruling until after the November vote (or until after the initiative fails to qualify for the ballot). If the supreme court instead permits its ruling to go into effect promptly (as it apparently intends), it will create the potential for lots of chaos and confusion. Consider, for example, same-sex “marriages” that occur between now and November, and assume that the initiative is adopted, thus overriding the court’s ruling. What happens, say, to a same-sex couple that has moved out of state in the meantime? How would other states treat the “marriage”? How would they handle requests for divorce?

There is one very bad reason for the court to have its ruling take effect in the meantime: to try to affect the November vote by, for example, making same-sex marriage seem a fait accompli. Somehow I suspect that is the majority’s reason.