http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/opinion/16rubinstein.html?thMarch 16, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Follow the Leaders
By WILLIAM B. RUBENSTEIN
Los Angeles — WHEN a California judge ruled on Monday that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, the decision generated national headlines and scathing criticism. But the decision is hardly news, and the judge is hardly an activist.
The decision itself is just the latest in a long line of recent cases recognizing the rights of same-sex couples. In 1993, Hawaii's Supreme Court ruled that discrimination against same-sex couples likely violated that state's Constitution. The court sent the case back to a trial court, and the judge struck down the marriage restrictions. Hawaii's voters then amended their Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman, but court cases continued to follow Hawaii's lead.
In subsequent years, judges in half a dozen other states - Alaska, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington - have recognized the rights of same-sex couples to marry, as have jurists in seven of Canada's 13 provinces. And cases are pending in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland and New Jersey.
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No matter how much opponents of same-sex marriage will try to say otherwise, Judge Kramer is not a radical liberal judge, wired on lattes in Haight-Ashbury. He's just now catching up to what the mayor and city council and state legislature - and courts from sea to shining sea - have known for years: that all Americans are entitled to equal treatment. Is that news?