First, a confession: I often frequent news site message boards about some piece of pro-gay news when I'm bored or need something to amuse myself with. It's always a lot of fun to read these boards, because I can watch the logic of the anti-gay posters unravel almost before my eyes. But in reading their accusations and knee-jerk reactions to sober, reflective and logical commentary on issues such as Proposition 8, I've discovered something.

They really do think that people are all exactly alike, and think in exactly the same ways as they do. And if you look at the accusations they make against gays (and non-Christians of various stripes) you'll find that they really do believe that everyone lives in the same kind of paranoid, isolationist, terrified, conformist world that they do. It's really quite frightening to try to think about the world the way they do - and it's no wonder that they are so afraid, angry, and rigid when confronted with social change that doesn't conform to their dogmatic beliefs.

Come with me after the jump for a partial analysis of how fundamentalists, through projection, accuse everyone else of acting just like they do.

That's a great thing to wake up to after Wednesday's disappointment. A new Field Poll (not the one taken in May, but one performed just this past week, from July 8 to July 14) shows that the majority of Californians still oppose Proposition 8, to the tune of 51% against to 42% in favor.

That, friends and neighbors, is great news. To me, it says that the pendulum really is swinging the other way, and that the tide has finally turned. (Gotta love repeatable results!)

Come with me after the jump for a short discussion of the results.

Well, I'd like to say that my husband and I are going into our second month of wedded bliss (tomorrow it will be a month!) without a care in the world. However, that would be a lie.

Today's California Supreme Court refusal to even hear the petition which gave very good and legal reasons to strip Proposition 8 off the ballot may be one of the reasons why we're both in a bit of a bad mood. Just perhaps.

Come with me after the fold to hear about the first month of our marriage, our honeymoon, and some tentative analysis of today's (misguided, in my opinion) decision by the California Supreme Court.

It's heartening when something you've read and written about less than a month ago becomes reality.

On May 27, I posted a diary here about Kevin Norte's legal analysis of the upcoming ballot initiative which would change California's constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman. According to Norte's analysis, this change is a revision, not an amendment, and thus cannot be decided by a simple-majority ballot initiative. Later that week, I called both Congressman Mark Leno's office and Mayor Gavin Newsom's office, to let them know about the analysis Norte had done and where they could find it. Both offices were surprised and excited to hear about it, and said they'd pass it on to their legal teams.

On Friday, EQCA and several other civil rights groups filed suit to have the California Supreme Court remove the initiative from the ballot, in part because it constitutes a revision, not an amendment.

Come with me over the jump for a look at the brief they filed.

So, I've been legally married to my man for three days now. At least, in about two hours, it'll be three days.

Everything is different now. It's better. Two nights ago, we were kicking back and talking, and one of us (I forget who) said something like: "Being married makes everything different. It's more real. It's serious. Before, it felt like we were just two teenagers playing house. It doesn't feel like that anymore."

Come and jump with us...

TOP-LEVEL EDIT: Several wonderful people have started a drive to help us fund our honeymoon. I appreciate this, and I'm not going to refuse whatever help is sent to us. I want to make it clear, however, that I did not ask for this to be done - it was other Kossacks doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts and on their own intiative. If you do not feel comfortable participating, please don't - if you feel your money would be better spent or sent elsewhere, I totally understand and support that. I don't want anyone to feel like they have to contribute. If you want to donate to Equality California, my husband and I are registered there as "Adam and Danny." Whether you want to donate to the fund people have started, or to Equality California, or both, or some other worthy cause - or even if all you can do is click and give mojo to people who need and deserve it - I will count it all as a wedding gift from the good people of this site. (end Top-Level Edit)

As I start writing this diary, it's 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday, June 17th. I've been legally married for seven hours.

It hasn't quite sunk in yet.

I'm a man who has a husband. Legally. Under the law. Recognized by the state.

Equal.

Yes, we've finally set a date.

My partner and I will be getting formally, legally hitched tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. at the Riverside County Courthouse. Today's the last day I'll call him my partner. Starting tomorrow at about 2 p.m., he's my husband, and nobody will be able to change that fact.

Come with me after the jump to hear about our plans!

It always pays to do your research.

I've had that drummed into my head for years now by my professors. Part of that research, when you're looking at social issues, is looking at the social reactions to the issues. One way I do this is by looking at comment threads on major news sites when they publish articles about issues I'm interested in, like marriage equality.

Recently, SFGate.com published an article on a small town in Northern California which is having real trouble with the idea of marriage equality. The 847 comments (at the point where I clicked on the comment links, anyway - it's grown since then) were largely made up of homophobes vs. rationalists, but there were also hidden gems.

One of them took me by complete surprise. Did you know that Proposition 14, which in 1964 added a constitutional amendment to the California State Constitution to allow racist discrimination in housing, was overturned as unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court in 1966?

Neither did I. And this knowledge gives me hope - because it means that even if a bigoted law becomes part of the constitution of the state, it can still be tossed out by the State Supreme Court.

This is not a candidate diary, or a political diary in any sense of the word.

It's personal.

My father has terminal cancer, and I just found out. And I'm not coping.

The California Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, refused to hear a petition by anti-marriage equality activists for a rehearing on their historic May 15th marriage equality ruling. Justices Werdegar, Kennard, and Moreno joined Chief Justice George in denying the rehearing.  Better still, the request for a stay was denied unanimously by the Court.

Their order, issued today, specified that the decision of the Court becomes final on June 16th. After that date, counties in California must issue marriage licenses to any two qualified adults.

This denial is yet another positive step towards the goal of true marriage equality in this state and elsewhere.

So my partner and I watched the entire RBC committee meeting and the aftermath on C-SPAN today (liveblogging here merrily all the while), and then switched to CNN, where we thought Barack was going to be speaking. He wasn't there, but there was an interesting story about gas prices, so we left it on.

I shouldn't have done that, because they then switched to politics.

In a quick review of the RBC decision today, one of the talking heads said "The Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic Party today handed a victory to Barack Obama, in a decision that will make it even harder for Senator Clinton to win the party nomination at the convention this summer."

I just boggled. This is almost as bad as the ongoing lie that HRC has the popular vote in the bag. More, with some stunningly easy arithmetic, after the jump.

This isn't going to be my usual kind of diary. This is more a plea for help and pointers, and ways to convince someone of the validity - and more importantly, the viability - of Obama's candidacy.

We've all had at least one Republican friend, neighbor, or colleague we've had to talk to about Barack. Most times, for them, the argument is between McSame and Barack. That's not a hard one to talk about for most of us - the differences are stark and real. We can talk about the loss of abortion rights if McSame gets the presidency, or about the Iraq war, or about the economy.

But I have a different problem, one that requires more nuance and finesse than I currently have available. Come on past the jump to see what my problem is...

In an analysis published today on both Metnews.com and the Log Cabin Republicans blog, Kevin Norte wrote a scathing analysis of the legal issues behind the anti-equality initiative which is currently working its way through validation proceedings and aimed at the California ballot in November. Norte has been a research attorney for the Los Angeles Superior Court since 1991.

According to Norte's analysis, the initiative cannot legally proceed to the ballot because it constitutes a revision, not just an amendment, of the California Constitution.

If this is the case, then the GLBT people of California have nothing to fear from this ballot initiative. It's already dead in the water. It's a moot point. Even if it was passed, it could not be enforced. It's already as archaic as the anti-sodomy, anti-miscegnation and Jim Crow laws are.

More after the jump...

My daughters are spending the weekend with me this weekend. They're nine and ten. I love them more than anything. Let's call them Agent Pokemon (my older child) and Plays Well With Others (my younger one), okay?

When they arrived, I was foaming at the mouth about Hillary Clinton's latest... I don't know what to call it. Garbage? Idiocy? Premeditated jackassery? Anyway, I was pretty riled, and ranting to my partner when they got here.

Agent Pokemon didn't know who Barack was, but she knew Hillary Clinton's name, because my ex had voted for her in the primaries a few months ago. I told her who Barack Obama was and tried to summarize what Clinton had said today. Agent Pokemon didn't really understand why I was angry, but she also isn't really interested in politics.

Plays Well With Others surprised me, however. More after the jump.

So now that we have legal same-sex marriage in California as well as Massachusetts, how do we hold onto it?  You see, California has a screwed-up constitutional amendment system. A simple majority vote can change the entire legal landscape in this state. Right now, there's already a huge movement among the right-wingers and homophobes in this state to take away that hard-won ruling we got last Thursday.

How do we talk to people about same-sex marriage without making them more likely to vote for the amendment?

Here's my suggestion: Don't call it same-sex marriage, or gay marriage, and certainly not homosexual marriage. Call it marriage equality.

It happened. It's real.

Those words keep coming back to me every time I think "Did it really happen, or was it all a dream?" It happened. It's real. The California Supreme Court really said "You are not a second-class citizen. You have the right to marry the person you love." My man and I can really follow through with the promises we've been making to each other for five years. This is real.

This ruling sets an extremely important precedent. Sexual orientation in California is now a "protected" or "suspect" class. Any new legislation which tries to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation must now meet a strict scrutiny standard. This is huge, folks. And as far as I can tell, this part of the decision stands even if that anti-equality amendment gets into the California constitution.

Of course, the anti-equality people are having a conniption fit about the decision, never mind its larger implications. More on that after the jump.

Every day, several times a day, my partner and I ask each other "Will you marry me?" We have been saying this since a month after we met in March of 2003. Sometimes we say it with real hope and a belief that someday we can actually make it happen. Sometimes, though, we say it with a kind of resigned, wistful cynicism, as if we know it never will.

Less than 24 hours from now, the California Supreme Court will hand down its decision on the constitutionality of the state ban on same-sex marriage.

And now, we're looking at each other as if we don't dare to hope or believe. But the hope is growing, and I would love to believe.

Come with me after the jump, and find out why the word "marriage" matters so much.

Hey you. Yeah, you. The person sitting at the computer screen, or holding the printout, reading this little screed I'm writing today. I've got news for you. Want to hear it?

You're privileged - and do you want to know why? You're literate. That, by itself, privileges you in a big way. You can read.

Let's have a talk about privilege and all its many and varied connotations, after the jump.