In the first day A.M. (After Marriage), amazingly enough not every couple in California spontaneously divorced as a result of city clerks handing out licenses with “Party 1” and “Party 2”.  There actually are still married people out there, and now they’ve been joined by thousands of LGBT couples.  And here are some of the highlights from today:

• It seems like every couple has an accompanying news article chronicling their wedding, but I think it’s a good thing for now (though I long for the day when this is unexceptional and not a news event).  Putting a human face on what can often be an abstract discussion about legal rights seems to me to be vital.  There’s a great series of videos featuring couples in the LA area at this link.

• There are of course detractors, although most of them are staying quiet for now.  One group who isn’t is the LA Archdiocese, which posted a statement denouncing “redefining marriage, which has a unique place in God’s creation.”  Maybe this is just me, but after the events of the last decade, I don’t think the Catholic church should be making any statements about sexuality whatsoever.

• True Majority and The Human Rights Campaign are but two of the organizations delivering petitions in support of marriage equality.  I expect many more.

• In Bakersfield, where Kern County clerk Ann Barnett has halted her office from officiating all weddings, an under-the-radar recall campaign has commenced.  By the way, there’s nothing new about such actions; historian and author of “Nixonland” (which you all need to read) Rick Perlstein reminds us that this is exactly what school districts in the South did after the Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka decision, shutting down entire school systems rather than integrating them.  They called it Massive Resistance.

Of course, the people who thought like that then-here’s an excellent article on one of them, Lester Maddox-are now looked upon as history’s losers, as monsters, as embarrassments, and have no defenders. Now, every conservative claims to have always been on the opposite side of the Lester Maddoxes of the day. The people who think like this now will look just as bad to history as Maddox did then. I try to mention this every time I speak to a conservative audience: that I pity them. They should take care to stay off the record when they oppose basic human rights, because it will eventually come back to bite them on the ass.

But ultimately, I’m not worried about them (though if I were a Christian, I’d worry for their immortal souls), because, twenty years down the road, most will successfully maintain they were for marriage equality all along. Moral relativism has its advantages.

• Finally, this is the video of the day (h/t AmericaBlog)