Well, sort of. Early patrol-planning meeting for this. Back soon!

It’s a peculiar political marriage between a man and a man: “Eight and a half years after their epic partisan battle over the fate of the 2000 presidential election, the lawyers David Boies and Theodore B. Olson appeared on the same team on Wednesday as co-counsel in a federal lawsuit that has nothing to do with hanging chads, butterfly ballots or Electoral College votes,” today’s New York Times reports. “Their mutual goal: overturning Proposition 8, California’s freshly affirmed ban on same-sex marriage. It is a fight that jolted many gay rights advocates — and irritated more than a few — but that Mr. Boies and Mr. Olson said was important enough to, temporarily at least, set aside their political differences.”

Here’s what Olson had to say at a news conference: “If you look into the eyes and hearts of people who are gay and talk to them about this issue, that reinforces in the most powerful way possible the fact that these individuals deserve to be treated equally.”

Yep. For a man with a lot of penance to take care of, it’s really a pretty good start.

Update: Oh, wait.

Same-sex couples can marry in Cedar Rapids. (But not in San Francisco. Go figure.)

Another quality No on Prop. 8 ad, brought to you by the people who make better inspired-by-the-Mac-vs.-PC ads than those other people.

(We’re having trouble with video embeds, so click here to watch it at YouTube.)

UPDATE: Ellen to the rescue! 

YIKES. Seems Pitt’s pet cause — a deeply important one — is in trouble, according to SFGate.com (scroll down to second item):

A poll sponsored by CBS 5-TV indicates that California voters now favor passage of Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment to ban same sex “I do’s,” by 47 to 42 percent.

The poll of 670 registered voters taken by Survey USA is a big shift from one taken just last month by the Public Policy Institute of California. That one showed Prop. 8 losing, 55 to 41 percent.

Advocates of same-sex marriage over at the No on 8 campaign say their tracking polls show the same trend, with the ban now leading, 47 to 43 percent. The Yes on 8 campaign happily reports that it’s seeing a shift as well.

One explanation? Well, the latest poll was taken a few days after Prop. 8 proponents put commercials on the air featuring Newsom celebrating the state Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage by half-yelling, half-growling to a City Hall crowd, “This door’s wide open now! It’s gonna happen – whether you like it or not!”

The same ads show a law professor warning that if the measure passes, it could jeopardize the tax-exempt status of churches and lead to “gay marriage taught in public schools.”

Same-sex marriage proponents dispute both arguments — but the ad does seem to be working.

Learn more — and take action — here. There’s even a wedding registry!

Courtney E. Martin had an interesting piece at The American Prospect the other day about the ways in which the legalization — here and there (but not there) — of gay marriage and has prompted her to reevaluate her own aversion to the tying of the knot. As a feminist wary of wedlock myself, I can’t help but nod along with her argument that historically, marriage is both heterosexist and just plain sexist. At the same time, it’s hard for a straight gal to condemn an institution that once considered women property at the same time that her gay friends are happily flocking to California to make their love public, official, and legit in the eyes of the very law that heretofore shut them out.

(more…)

Via Broadsheet:

Turns out there’s an old law on the books in Wisconsin that prohibits couples from leaving the state to marry and returning with a union that’s not valid in Wisconsin. Not sure this is what the drafters in 1915 had in mind, but this would apparently include going to California, say, to marry a partner of the same sex and then coming home to the Badger State. The offense: fraud, carrying a penalty of up to nine months of jail time and a fine of up to $10K.

Would anyone actually want to prosecute them? Ya, shore, you betcha. “Someone has to prosecute them,” Julaine Appling of the Wisconsin Anti-Fraud Family Council told CNN. “That’s a defrauding of the government.”

See you in court, say Wisconsin couple Kathy Cox and Kim Whalen, who, having been together for 20 years, plan to visit CA to tie the knot in August. “The pioneers get the arrows, and the settlers get the land,” they told CNN. “So we’ll take a few arrows.”

Now, thanks to the California Supreme Court, you can — as you’ve likely heard by now — get married somewhere other than Massachusetts. Yes, there may be icky political repercussions down the line, but for now let us just say: mazal tov!