I'll be a marriage outlaw

If the California Supreme Court watchers are right, I'm on the verge of owning a rather odd document: a marriage certificate from a state that doesn't let gay people like me marry. Maybe my certified copy -- now filed neatly away between old bank statements and my lease -- will become a collector's item. Like Confederate currency. Or trading cards for defunct baseball teams.

During oral arguments Thursday over the future of Proposition 8, key justices projected their aversion to overturning that constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But they also betrayed an unwillingness to undo the "I do's" of 2008. Even Kenneth W. Starr, who argued that Californians have the right to amend their Constitution however they see fit, mostly conceded this point. "I don't believe Proposition 8 invalidates those marriages," he said. "What it does do is deny recognition."

This is a funny trick Starr expects California to pull off. The state will just cover its bureaucratic eyes, he suggests, and sort of pretend it all never happened.

Yet, rather than dread my potential future of semi-suspended matrimony, I've decided to embrace it. On this roller-coaster trip toward full civil rights for gays, this could be the fun part of the ride.

It's the moment when the anti-marriage-equality forces might want to coast downhill, to revel in their courtroom comeback, to finally savor their 52.47% victory at the polls last November. To the most smug among them, I will be able to say this:

I'm still married.

A $50-million election battle, two high-court showdowns, and what do the pro-Proposition 8 folks have to show for it? California still has what is likely the largest population of married same-sex couples -- an estimated 18,000 -- anywhere in the world. That's 18,000 raspberry seeds stuck in their teeth for years to come. California won't be a gay-marriage-free zone again unless we all die or move. If they believe Proposition 8 hollows out my marriage, well, my marriage hollows out their political victory.

I am loath to admit this, but aspects of Starr's argument hold some sway with me. I want each state to be able to establish its own guiding legal framework, within the parameters of the U.S. Constitution. (I do wish it weren't quite so easy to alter the Constitution here in the Golden State.) And, given that reinstating the death penalty was acceptable as a California constitutional amendment, I have a hard time understanding how banning gay marriage wouldn't pass muster too.