The LA Times and their East Coast namesake both have stories on San Francisco Judge Richard Kramer's ruling that the California constitution requires the state to certify same-sex marriages. As xrlq points out, there is no basis for this decision. The only thing that Judge Kramer proved is that Superior Court judges are elected, and Judge Kramer knows his electorate.
Now, unlike many of my Bear-Flag friends, I believe that same-sex marriage is inevitable and reasonable public policy. What I don't believe, however, is that it is required by any constitution. There is utterly no argument based on original intent, state or federal. Doesn't pass the laugh test. There are several compelling reasons for heterosexual marriage that do not, without extreme contortion, present themselves in the same-sex case. While the "right to pursue happiness" seems to me enough argument for enabling legislation, until there is a vote explicitly adopting such a provision any "living Constitution" assertion by pointy-headed judges is simple judicial activism of the worst kind. Even if the words seem to require such an outcome, the intent was never there, everyone knows it, and there is still a majority of public opinion against it.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
It is so stupid in fact, that only those in oppostion to gay marriage should applaud this decision, as it will inevitably lead to an initiative amendment next election, rebuking the court and setting back marriage rights for gays a decade or more. Not to mention invite the Legislature to pass more of the execrable "marriage-lite" laws, which are the real threat to the institution of marriage.
It is so stupid, in fact, that one wonders if the motives of those who pushed it were to create a backlash in order to keep gays resentful and in the ghetto, lest they lose a power base.
UPDATE: Eugene Volokh explodes the "intent" argument by pointing out that when ERA foes said that the ERA would require homosexual marriage, the ERA proponents thought it an hysterical and extreme reading of the proposed Amendment. Yet the Court today finds (as did the one in Massachusetts) that the state Constitution's mini-ERA in fact requires such an outcome, never mind how ludicrous it seemed only 30 years ago.