The Mandelbear's Musings

Notice how I phrased that subject line. I'm going to quote this post by maiac (found via a comment on this post by trektone), which explains it much better than I can:

Specifically, the Court ruled that it's unconstitutional to make a distinction between opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples such that only opposite-sex couples are permitted the full recognition of their committed relationship that the term marriage bestows.

Here's a longer quote (emphasis mine) from full decision [PDF]:

...under this state's Constitution, the constitutionally based right to marry properly must be understood to encompass the core set of basic substantive legal rights and attributes traditionally associated with marriage that are so integral to an individual's liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process. These core substantive rights include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish -- with the person with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life -- and officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage. As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together an officially recognized family of their own -- and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family -- constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society.

Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

[...]

One of the core elements of the right to establish an officially recognized family that is embodied in the California constitutional right to marry is a couple's right to have their family relationship accorded dignity and respect equal to that accorded other officially recognized families, and assigning a different designation for the family relationship of same-sex couples while reserving the historic designation of "marriage" exclusively for opposite-sex couples poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect.

[...]

...retaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite-sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise -- now emphatically rejected by this state -- that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects "second-class citizens" who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples.... Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.

It's worth noting that only one of the court's seven members is a Democratic appointee. That, plus the wording of the decision, makes it likely that it will stand up even after the inevitable initiative ammendment attempting to narrow the definition of "marriage" passes.

What it comes down to is that "marriage" as defined by the state of California is a civil contract between consenting adults (only two, at the moment, but one can hope for that, too, to change eventually) that formally recognizes a family relationship between them. Period.

It has nothing to do with religion. If a religion expects its followers to believe in a narrower definition of the word, they can, just as they can believe in a narrower definition of the word "priest", or that the entire universe was created in its present form in seven days, or that the sun revolves around an unmoving Earth. As Galileo once said, "nevertheless, it moves."

Just don't try to tell my daughters who they can marry, or who has the power to marry them. In California the answer to "who can they marry" is now "anyone", just like the answer to "who has the power" has been for several decades.