Many hundred people converged in Westlake Park a few hours ago to shake their fists at the California Supreme Court for upholding Prop 8. It was weird, though, because folks looked pretty happy. Except this guy, who looked like he was ready to make some Spotted Owl bisque:

He's Karl Derrick, and he's not mean at all. "The left doesn't often use the American flag," he said. "Too often it's waved to represent the bludgeoning end of America." Indeed. This next picture was taken by Nic Launceford on Flickr:

Here is state Senator Ed Murray, begging the massive gaggle to get off their metropolitan asses and organize outside the sequined walls of Capitol Hill:

Behind him to the left—Murray's right—is Representative Jamie Pedersen, who looks like an angel. And not one of those chubby little Rococo angels. A tiny little Lutheran angel. "Referendum 71 is a blessing in disguise," he says.

You may remember how sponsors of Referendum 71 whined two weeks ago that Governor Christine Gregoire was delaying their campaign by not signing the domestic-partnership bill into law. "Each day they have delayed signing the legislation is one less day we have for signature gathering. I'm certain they are aware of that," wrote campaign spokesman Gary Randall.

But who are they going to blame for the delay now?

This afternoon Larry Stickney, the campaign's other ringleader, filed a challenge to the ballot title of Referendum 71 in Thurston County Superior Court. May 29 would be the soonest date for a court hearing, says Secretary of State spokesman David Ammons, but June 5 or June 12 would be more likely. In other words, by filing this complaint, Stickney is losing up to 18 days to gather signatures. That would leave him only six weeks before the July 25 deadline to print petitions and gather 120,000 signatures.

According to the court file, Stickney wants the ballot question (as proposed by state Attorney General Rob McKenna) changed from this:

This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.

Should this bill be:

Approved ___
Rejected ___

...to this:

This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equal to the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of married couples, except that domestic partnerships shall not be called marriage.

Should this bill be:

Approved ___
Rejected ___

So is a domestic partnership actually marriage but not called marriage, as Stickney argues? Or is it not marriage, as the original language suggests, because it's not actually a marriage? God only knows what Judge Thomas McPhee will say about the wording—whenever he gets around to the case, that is—but he may be unimpressed with one of the words in the complaint. Stickney's lawyer four times misspells the state Attorney General's last name as "McKinna."

Some people think we did. A reader of Sullivan's describes today's ruling as "a blockbuster pro-gay-rights decision," and Seneca Doane at Daily Kos writes...

In last year's landmark 4-3 decision, In re Marriage Cases, the California Supreme Court decided that same-sex couples have a fundamental right under state law to every single advantage that heterosexual couples do, including the right to call their legal union "marriage."

Today, the court unanimously upheld the substantive fundamental right. Liberal to conservative, they all now accept it. They construed Prop 8 as narrowly as possible: as a initiative that addressed what we would label these relationships that we normally call marriage. The voters said that we can't call these relationships "marriage" when they involve same-sex couples. That's an insult to gays and lesbians and I hope and believe that it will not last. But note what this does not say.

Go read the whole thing.

Very big crowd, some of of the usual protest/rally suspects, but way more young people, and lots of people that have become active in the movement since the Prop 8 decision last November. We are winning.

I'm buying the first round of drinks!

Okay, okay, okay. I know folks are dejected about the California Supreme Court upholding a bigoted initiative. Who the fuck are they to decide Prop 8 was consitutional? Well... they are California's supreme court, but still! And I know that some people have doubts about the difference a protest makes. There's no tangible result from holding a rally. On the other hand, there's no tangible result from writing, blogging, reading and creating progressive media, symbolic legislation, and lots of other tactics that have advanced every progressive movement that's ever moved.

Folks had the same doubts about the civil-rights marches, women's-rights marches, bus boycotts, gay pride parades, the anti-war protests... Some of them made no difference; some of them were little components of huge movements. You don't always know which actions are the conduits for change. But virtually every successful civil rights movement has, in part, been bolstered by marches and rallies. It's incorrect to discount their value just because we can't determine a direct causality between the protesting and changing the law. The only direct causalities in law are votes and rulings. But no one would say that political and social forces don't shape those votes and decisions. So get your ass to Westlake. The event starts at 5:30 p.m. You'll at least see me and Savage there.

Also, if you want a correlation between marches and laws, here's one: After Prop 8 passed, we marched and rallied. Boy were we pissed. A few months later, Senator Murray and Representative Jamie Pedersen decided to push through a final domestic-partnership bill, one that contained all the remaining rights of marriage—several years earlier than expected. And now we have a new organization beating down the bigots behind Referendum 71. It's a slow trudge, but it's fun. And there are drinks afterward.

A handful of groups advocating for marriage-equality have just announced that they won’t file a challenge of the ballot title of Referendum 71. The tactic would have eaten up time for opponents to gather signatures for the petition, which would slim the chances that the referendum could even make it on the ballot.

“After we looked very carefully at what the attorney general’s office had drafted … we concluded that the ballot title accurately reflects what the domestic-partnership bill does,” says Lisa Stone, a spokeswomen for Washington Families Standing Together, the newly formed organization fighting to uphold the bill. The recommendation to avoid a challenge came from the ACLU of Washington and Legal Voice (Stone is also the director of Legal Voice). She says that challenging the language simply to defeat the measures could elicit a negative public reaction. “We like to be sure that we are acting as ethically as we can,” she says.

The deadline to challenge the ballot title in Thurston County Superior Court is today at 5p.m.

However, someone else could still challenge the ballot title.

In fact, rumors have surfaced that Protect Marriage Washington (PMW), the group of bigots sponsoring Referendum 71, will file the challenge itself. PMW spokesman Gary Randall did not immediately return calls to comment. And it’s unclear how PMW would seek to improve the wording of the petition, but the strategy could backfire.

Dave Ammons, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, said last week that a judge could hear the case as soon as this Friday. “But June 5 or June 12 would be more likely," he says. PMW would then be left with as few as 43 days to print petitions and collect the 120,577 required to make the November ballot.

Stone says Washington Families Standing Together could then go to court to keep the wording. “We will look very carefully at what they are proposing and determine if we need to intervene,” she says.

Ugh:

Do we know where the president stands? Really? I am really getting sick of watching Robert Gibbs shrug and grimace his way through questions about gay rights and marriage equality and DADT. This is "fierce advocacy"?