Dean E. Murphy reports today in the International Herald Tribune that Judge Richard Kramer has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in response to a lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco against the state of California. The current restrictions against same-sex marriage are based upon Proposition 22, which was approved in 2000 by California voters, and a law enacted by the Legislature in 1977. Kramer wrote,

“The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts: separate but equal.

The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional.”   

Many of the arguments opposing same-sex marriage could be compared with those “once made against mixed-race marriages or racially integrated schools,” Kramer noted.

“The denial of marriage to same-sex couples appears impermissibly arbitrary,” he stated yesterday.

As Kramer must still meet with several parties to the litigation, the ruling will not become final until March 30.