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Same-sex marriage may be an idea whose time has come - the next step in the march toward the equality of all Americans. Or it may be an idea whose time has gone - a violation of the most basic notions of family. Viewing the issue one way or the other, courts across the nation have divided into two basic camps. Monday a San Francisco judge took the first view, putting California on a parallel course with Massachusetts and Washington state. Arizona, Indiana and New Jersey are pointed in the opposite direction. In all, at least 10 states have had judicial opinions on same-sex marriage in the past dozen years. The decisions interpret state constitutional provisions that may differ in significant ways but "are vague and capacious enough that a lot depends on the attitude with which the courts interpret them," said Vikram Amar, a constitutional authority at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. … "The debate has been about whether a state can show a rational basis for limiting marriage to other-sex couples," said Lawrence Levine, an authority on sexual orientation cases at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. But Levine said the only decision so far that matters is the one from Massachusetts. With all the others, including California's, he said, "one has to be patient and let the case work its way through the courts." All parties acknowledge the California case won't be over until the state high court rules. And maybe not even then.
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