Judge Richard Kramer of San Francisco County Superior Court was put on the bench by Republican Governor Pete Wilson many years ago.
On March 14, though, Judge Kramer ruled in a way that will upset many Republicans. He quite properly concluded that there is no rational, secular reason why same-sex couples can't get married. To deny that right is "impermissibly arbitrary," he said. He noted that lawyers who opposed gay marriage were making arguments similar to those that were used to uphold anti-miscegenation laws and the era of separate but equal.
The arguments against gay marriage are indeed terrible. Either they are based in religious texts, which should not govern our secular democracy, or they are based on tradition. Here's what one of the attorneys arguing against the ruling said: It "flies in the face of common sense and millennia of human history."
But so-called common sense and millennia of human history justified slavery and sanctified the subordination of women.
Our bedrock principles should rest on more than so-called common sense and the centrifuged prejudices of history.
As other judges reach the same conclusion as Kramer has, the major obstacle that will stand between the legal right of same-sex marriage and continued second-class citizenship is the possibility of a constitutional amendment. The Republicans will no doubt try this, but it would be a historic, and notorious, first: To enshrine in the Constitution an amendment that takes away the rights of a specific group of people.
It all boils down to the kind of society we want: a society based on tolerance and equality, or a society where the majority oppresses the minority and relies on religious parchment or musty tradition to do so.