Round and round we go...

...but I focus on the good news as it comes by. A California judge has just ruled the state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

Judge Richard Kramer of San Francisco County's trial-level Superior Court likened the ban to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be "no rational purpose" for denying marriage to gay couples.

It's interesting to note that the judge cited Brown v. Board of Education for his ruling, in effect saying that civil unions were an unacceptable attempt to make a type of second-class public rights.

"The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts — separate but equal," the judge wrote.

Of course, there will be appeals, and in fact there is a marriage amendment to the CA constitution in the pipeline, but still, a moment of thoughtfulness amidst the storm.

(via Fables of the Reconstruction)