Ain't what it's cracked up to be

Rico says he's been married and divorced, but he does understand the (stupid) desire of gay men to be married, as Bob Egelko explains in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The legal and societal war over same-sex marriage reaches another milestone today when a federal appeals court rules on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, a voter initiative that defined marriage in California as the union of a man and a woman.
The decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco won't be the last word from the judiciary on the scope of marriage, or on the validity of the November of 2008 initiative. After possible further review by a larger appellate panel, the case will almost certainly head for the Supreme Court.
But the ideologically diverse three-judge appellate panel, which will issue its decision today, has a chance to affect the outcome by framing its ruling broadly or narrowly. A broad ruling that affirms a federal judge's 2010 conclusion that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to wed their chosen partner would invite review by a high court that frequently overturns decisions by the more liberal Ninth Circuit.
But the panel might also overturn Proposition 8 on more limited grounds: that California, apparently because of its voters' disapproval of homosexuality, had withdrawn marital rights granted to same-sex couples by the state Supreme Court less than six months earlier.
That approach was taken by the Supreme Court in a 1996 ruling that struck down a Colorado initiative that prohibited local governments from enacting civil rights laws protecting gays and lesbians. The court said the Constitution prohibits states from taking rights away from a minority group because of moral disapproval.
If today's decision follows that path, a possibility raised by Judge Stephen Reinhardt and Judge Michael Hawkins when the panel heard arguments in December of 2010, it would apply only to California and not to any other states. The court could also find that California had no rational basis for denying marriage to same-sex couples after adopting laws and policies providing gays and lesbians with an array of other rights in areas like employment, housing and child custody, a ruling that would apply to a limited number of states. The third panel member, Judge N. Randy Smith, asked a pro-Proposition 8 lawyer about that distinction at the hearing, but asked other questions indicating he might vote to uphold the ballot measure. Reinhardt is a staunch liberal, while Hawkins is a more moderate Democrat and Smith a generally conservative Republican.
This case, however, hasn't followed party lines.
The plaintiffs, two same-sex couples and the American Foundation for Equal Rights, are represented by Theodore Olson and David Boies, the lawyers for George W. Bush and Al Gore, respectively, in the Supreme Court case that decided the 2000 presidential election.
And Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who struck down Proposition 8 in August of 2010, is a Republican originally nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan and ultimately appointed by George H.W. Bush.
Walker ruled that the ballot measure discriminated based on sexual orientation and gender and did not provide any offsetting benefits to the institution of marriage. Proposition 8's sponsors appealed, arguing that it was not discriminatory for voters to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage.
The appeals court panel also plans to rule today on a separate but related issue raised by Proposition 8's supporters: whether the now-retired Walker should have been disqualified from the case, and his ruling set aside, because he did not disclose before the trial that he is a gay man with a longtime partner whom he could marry if same-sex marriages were legalized.
Walker's successor as chief judge, James Ware, ruled in June that Walker had no duty to disclose details of his private life and found no evidence that he had been biased.