News just broke that the California Supreme Court has overturned the ban on gay marriage that they initially enforced in 2004 after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom gave the green light, opening a month-long window when thousands of gay couples traveled to the Bay Area to get hitched.

The Supreme Court basically said that Newsom couldn’t take matters into his own hands, and neither could they until the lower courts acted first. Fast-forward to 2008, and the Supreme Court finally declares “that domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George,” according to the New York Times.

The LA Times offers a more in-depth analysis of the decision, essentially saying that this is hardly the end of the road, even in California.

The state high court’s ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state Constitution to block same-sex marriage, and the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

I find the hypocrisy and lack of foresight in the US deplorable. As we look back, 40 years removed from the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the contradiction inherent to the phrase “all men are created equal,” as written by slave-owners, is now widely accepted among all but the staunchest of rascists.

Yet most are incapable of drawing the parallel here. In the infinitely-wise words of Chris Rock, “gay people deserve to be just as miserable as the rest of us.”

For the record, I love marriage and I love my wife.  And although the dynamic does shift between a couple after marriage, the bulk of the significance is legal.  Provided you worked well before taking the plunge.

Still, some people in this country continue to cling to some anachronistic credo of Christianity calling the shots in people’s lives when it comes to who they can and can’t marry. Make no mistake, the easiest way to maintain national homophobia without ascribing to it is shifting the blame to God. Bush all but donned a white collar each time he spoke publicly in support of the ban on gay marriage.

It’s a disregard for the separation of church and state. It’s institutionally sanctioned discrimination. And why the hell does anyone care if two guys want to file a joint tax return?

Ahh, but what about the poor children of these people? Don’t the kids deserve to have a “normal” life? Should they be subjected to a life of unrest if they never have a choice in the matter? Innocent souls! Nevermind the stellar track record of heterosexual households in promoting unity, honoring holy matrimony, and raising children properly.

Funny also that one defense of keeping children out of same-sex parenting households has to do with shielding them from discrimination fostered by the same people enforcing the laws.  With some US Supreme Court spots up for grabs and this case likely to be on their slate post-November, this may become the most decisive issue separating an Obama from a McCain administration.

As my good friend (and LA county public defender) Dan put it, the idea of creating a Constitutional amendment that restricts civil liberties is beyond comprehension. Whatever precedent is set once this case is laid to rest may be the last barrier to such an amendment seeing the floor in Congress.

Either way, institutional hatred only lasts so long. This has been proven since the dawn of civilization. Gay people aren’t going anywhere because we try to write them out of existence, looking on their lives as substandard and undeserving. Just as those who deny that we will be a bilingual nation in 30 years are laughable, so too is the idea that gay people will not continue to fight for the equal rights they deserve.

Just as Americans fought to free themselves from British tyranny. Just as women fought for suffrage and equal rights in the workplace. Just as African-Americans fought social injustices now considered archaic. Just as the Berlin Wall fell.

Segregation, marginalization, legislative brow-beating…all prove powerless in the face of the indomitable will of a people to gain equal footing in a society. Why should this be any different? Why are we doomed to repeat our embarrassing cycles of discrimination over and over again only to see the same result once education across generations destroys homegrown ignorance?

Remove the sarcasm from Chris Rock’s statement, and you get something that vaguely resembles one of the documents our country was founded on: “Gay people deserve the right to be just as happy as the rest of us.”

Sounds like a pursuit to me. How about we help them on their way for once?