The California Supreme Court once again took the side of the gay litigants and their allies, deciding that “Lesbian and gay couples who plan for a family and raise a child together can be considered legal parents after a breakup”.  However, this case really should be no surpise after the CaliSupes decided that a golf club must accept a lesbian’s domestic partner in the same manner it would accept a spouse.

The news here, I believe, isn’t in these actual decisions particularly.  Rather, it is the growing body of law that the Supreme Court is building.

Let’s move to the flip…

The San Francisco Chronicle always has taken a pro-gay standing (well, you kinda have to here if you want to sell any papers).  They wrote another positive article for the role of gay parents on August 23.

Kim M. knows the California Supreme Court ruling Monday that she is a parent to her 9-year-old twin daughters is a historic victory for gay and lesbian rights, but it means even more than that to her.

“Next to the day my daughters were born, it is the happiest day of my life,” said Kim M., 43, a Marin County resident who hasn’t seen or talked to her daughters in nearly a year.
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The three cases decided Monday define parenthood for gay and lesbian couples by extending to them the same rights to custody and child support that unmarried heterosexuals have.

“We are enormously relieved and elated about the three decisions today where the California Supreme Court applied settled California law equally to children born to same-sex couples,” said Joslin, the lesbian rights center lawyer.

Children will benefit most from the decisions ensuring the rights of second parents, said Beth Teper, executive director of Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere, a national organization based in San Francisco.

“What this decision does is allow for a child’s relationship to each of his or her parents to be protected,” Teper said.

While certainly San Francisco is not the place where it should be hard to convinve the public of the importance of equal rights, it is a starting point.

The San-Jose Mercury News voices their approval in an editorial on Wednesday.

Of course, a child’s right to be supported by two parents is also a parent’s right to financial support from an estranged partner. And a child’s right to maintain a relationship with both parents is a parent’s right to maintain a relationship with her child, regardless of the wishes of her estranged partner.

And so the rulings represent another important move toward wearing down the distinctions that unfairly discriminate against same-sex couples. It comes less than three weeks after another important ruling by the same court reaffirmed the state’s domestic-partners law. They are hopeful steps along the road to the day when all committed loving couples, gay or straight, will be afforded the full protection of the law.

But the fact that these kinds of opinions can come from some of the day’s great newspapers is a hopeful sign.  Of course, it is not limited to marraige and parenting issues or to the Bay Area newspapers.

The LA Times on these cases: “AS THE POLITICS OF GAY MARRIAGE become increasingly contentious, the legalities of it are becoming increasingly mundane. “

The Sac Bee (Dan Walters) on the gay marriage bill:

Logically, it would be difficult to deny same-sex couples the right to have their relationships officially recognized through marriage. Homosexuality has been part of the human experience for countless centuries, even though only rarely acknowledged, and contemporary science has amassed considerable evidence that a substantial number of people are simply wired by genetics to prefer those of the same gender.

The SF Chron on Gays in the military:

That pride in our military institutions fades as they continue to discriminate against gay men and women. The Army should mirror the society from which it draws its members. Our Founding Fathers had just that in mind when they referred to the “citizen-soldier.” Current policy, one that excludes anyone from military service solely on the basis of sexual orientation, violates the very principles and values on which our nation is based. It needs to end. Today, on this issue, one might ask, “What would Harry Truman do?”

The California media is leading the way towards equal rights.  This is an important and valuable fact as we look towards the marriage initiative in 2006.