In a landmark decision, the California State Supreme Court ruled that California's ban on same-sex marriage - in place for 31 years - is unconstitutional. The narrow 4-3 victory is cause for celebration in cities across the state. However, a dark cloud looms. The history of the LGBT movement in the US shows that no great victory goes unchallenged. Already, opponents of marriage equality have submitted 1.1 million signatures to the Secretary of State in an attempt to place a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages on the November ballot. Of the 1.1 million signatures submitted, 694,538 must be verified to...

Today, the California Supreme Court convened in San Francisco for three hours of arguments about same-sex marriage in California. Each side was allotted ninety minutes of time to make their case, as an overflow audience watched the proceedings on video screens in a nearby building (and in auditoriums across the state, including here on the UC Berkeley campus). Much argument centered around a 1948 case in which the Court struck down California’s ban on inter-racial marriage. In this case, the “right to join in marriage with the person of one’s choice” was recognized. Key to proponents of same-sex marriage is...

The California Supreme Court is set to make a landmark ruling on same-sex marriage rights, within 90 days after a hearing scheduled March 4 in San Francisco. The court will convene for 3 hours to hear arguments from both sides of the issue. At stake is an October 2006 state court ruling affirming California's law barring same-sex marriages. The issue came to a head after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's controversial 2004 decision to ignore the marriage law and grant marriage licenses to thousands of same-sex couples. With the timing of the hearing, such as it is during a contentious...

We're now in the 5th inning of game four of the ALCS 2007 championship, there's no score, and I like most of what I'm seeing on the field-- Boston versus Cleveland is a truly worthy match. But the TV continually flashes the two teams logos: a red letter "B" -- and a red grinning "Indian" head. Cleveland's cartoon makes me wince every time. I thought some of the other readers of Policy Matters might want to learn more about this curious hold-over from the 1950's. Cleveland's baseball team went through a list of names over forty years before landing with...

The US Employment Non-Discrimination Act (or ENDA) has gone to Washington, again, this time incarnated as H.R. 2015: the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007. It reached the the House Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee in September, and was slated to go to the floor for a vote last week. Monday night Speaker Pelosi's office announced a decision to delay the bill as the authors revisit recent revisions that stripped the bill of gender identity protections. Pelosi announced “After discussions with congressional leaders and organizations supporting passage of ENDA, we have agreed to schedule mark-up of the bill in the...