But is 2010 too soon? Should same-sex couples wait longer than they expected for marriage quality? It's a sordid thing for a straight man like myself who cares deeply about this issue to say to gay men and women. Their quality of life is at stake, not mine, and it's completely unfair for them to have to spend any more of their remaining lives as second-class citizens. But when the focus shifted from domestic partnerships to the M-word, conservative activists (and yes, I'm lumping in those of you who say you tilt left but oppose equality) dug in and fought hard -- and, I would say, unfairly.

The question doesn't have an easy answer. As The Times wrote in its Nov. 5 editorial on Maine voters' rejection of same-sex marriage:

-- Paul Thornton

(Full disclosure: I've been happily hitched since 2007, and I wouldn't hesitate to "renew" my marriage license under such a scheme. As for divorce, my parents split when I was 3 years old -- a move that, on reflection, was in everyone's best interest.)

-- Paul Thornton

Photo credit: Los Angeles Times

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is, in a sense, having a similar argument thrown in its face, as reported in the Washington Post:

Read the whole Post article here.

So there you have it: Charities associated with the Catholic Church in Washington do indeed have the same rights as every other group -- to contract with the city to provide services without discriminating against gay men and women. Of course, there's a far more pressing issue facing the archdiocese, as articulated by D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh: "'Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue? I hope, in the silver light of day, when this passes, because it will pass, they will not really act on this threat."

The Times briefly addressed the conflict between religious charities and legalizing same-sex marriage in its editorial against Proposition 8.

-- Paul Thornton

It was a blow to Roman Catholic liberals when the Vatican announced last month that it would welcome, en masse, conservative Anglicans who share the pope's opposition to female clergy and traditional views about homosexuality. But there was a silver lining for liberals: The fact that in welcoming married Anglican priests to the fold, Pope Benedict XVI was perhaps opening the door to married priests within so-called Latin Rite Catholicism. (Eastern Rite Catholics, who recognize the pope's authority but follow rites similar to those of Eastern Orthodoxy, do ordain married men, though Eastern Catholics in the United States were pressured to conform to Western practice so as not to "scandalize" their Irish Catholic neighbors).

But the publication this week of the decree implementing the overture to Anglicans suggests that the slope to married Catholic priests isn't that slippery. After saying that married former Anglican priests could be ordained as Catholic priests, the "Apostolic Constitution" stops short of adopting the Anglican practice of routinely ordaining men who want to become priests.

While authorities of the new church-within-a-church will abide by "the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule," an "ordinary" (a bishop or former Anglican bishop) may also ask the pope for permission to ordain married men "on a case-by-case basis." This could be a face-saving way to perpetuate the Anglican tradition of a married clergy without saying so, or it could be a warning that married Anglican laymen will be ordained only rarely. Either way, the new Anglican body within Catholicism will not have the autonomy enjoyed by the Eastern Catholic churches.

The more stinging rebuff to Roman Catholic advocates of married priests is this rather mean-spirited provision of a companion document: "Those who have been previously ordained in the Catholic Church and subsequently have become Anglicans, may not exercise sacred ministry in the Ordinariate." In other words, if you left the Catholic Church and now want to return alongside other Anglican priests, you are treated worse than an Anglican priest who never belonged to the Catholic Church in the first place.

Perhaps the purpose of this provision is to prevent married Roman Catholics who want to be ordained as priests to pretend to convert to Anglicanism so that they can go back through the revolving church door and be accepted as married Catholic priests. But how likely is that? And if the church is willing to incorporate Anglican traditions that don't violate Catholic doctrine (as opposed to a mere regulation like mandatory celibacy), why not treat the new Anglican Rite exactly as the Eastern churches are treated? The only justification for that inconsistency is to stifle discussion about ending mandatory celibacy for Roman Catholic priests.

-- Michael McGough

An unlikely folk hero has emerged from the debate over same-sex marriage in Maine. On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to go along with the Legislature's legalization of same-sex marriage in the state or whether to kill it via a "people's veto."

If voters defeat Question 1 -- meaning if they affirm the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry -- Maine will become the first state to support same-sex marriage at the ballot box. So far, such marriages have been legalized only through court rulings or legislative action.

Polls have shown an extremely tight race, and supporters of same-sex marriage have been hoping to get a boost from an 87-year-old World War II veteran who has become the Internet face of opposition to Question 1. Close to 600,000 people have watched Philip Spooner on YouTube, recounting in a public hearing earlier this year the wrenching sights of blood and death he saw in action and his belief that the sacrifice was in support of a nation that extends equal rights to all.

Spooner, a lifelong Republican, and his late wife raised four sons, one of whom is gay. It's unthinkable to him, he said in the tremulous voice of old age, that three of his sons will enjoy rights denied to the fourth.

"This is what we fought for in World War II," he said, "that idea that we can be different and still be equal."

Maine residents might be traditionalists by nature, but they also have a reputation as independent sorts who take a live-and-let-live attitude toward life. Spooner is, as gay-marriage supporters see him, the epitome of that fierce independence.

Let's hope Maine voters have been a big part of Spooner's Internet audience.

-- Karin Klein

Photo credit: Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press

Columnist Tim Rutten returns from vacation to find the "birthers" still discussing citizen grand juries and opponents of healthcare reform bringing guns to President Obama's town hall meetings. There's more than the usual dollop of crazy talk in our politics, Rutten warns:

Read the column, then leave your comments -- rational or otherwise -- below. Elsewhere on the Op-Ed page, criminal law scholar J. Kelly Strader warns that courts around the country are essentially ignoring the Supreme Court's admonition in Lawrence v. Texas that states couldn't outlaw private behavior that clashes with the majority's view of morality. And Vanda Felbab-Brown, a foreign-policy fellow at the Brookings Institute, offers insights on the four front-runners in Thursday's presidential election in Afghanistan.

In the editorial stack, the Times board blasts the California legislature for its failure to mandate more use of renewable energy by state utilities, despite the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, utility regulators and most voters. It pooh-poohs GM's eBay initiative, questioning whether the carmaker can do anything truly innovative on sales without hurting its dealer network. And it looks past newly released scores on standardized tests to find something encouraging at Locke High School:

Photo credit: AP Photo / John Bazemore

-- Jon Healey

The editorial board mulls over a few topics today, starting with healthcare for illegal immigrants in the proposed reform bill currently floating through Congress. While the editorial board says it may be economically sound to extend coverage to illegal immigrants, it concludes that including such a provision in the bill would kill the measure.

Comparing Hollywood's stance on restrictive Chinese policies to the studios' opposition to novel technologies in the U.S., the board admonishes the studios for attempting to centrally control how people consume their products:

Finally, the board argues that although gay and lesbian couples should not have to wait -- or campaign -- for their right to marry, the Equality California and Courage Campaign should unite their efforts and wait to put a revamped Proposition 8 on the ballot in 2012 instead of 2010:

On the op-ed side of the pages, Robert M. Hertzberg and Thomas McKernan, co-chairmen of California Forward, lay out their solution to California's budget crisis and preventing this year's mess from happening again. Their plan includes keeping government local, defining agencies' goals and purpose in the budget and the institution of a two-year budget as well as a pay-as-you-go approach to new programs.

Emily Green, author of the weekly Dry Garden column for the Los Angeles Times, writes in about Southern California's rather silly obsession with green lawns and argues that brown is both natural and beautiful.

Finally, columnist Gregory Rodriguez responds to those who have decried the disruptive protesters who have been coming out in droves to town halls about healthcare in the past couple of weeks. His thoughts? It's as American as apple pie, and a crucial part of the democratic process (as annoying as it may be):

Image: Jimmy Margulies / The Record

-- Catherine Lyons

Bet you thought that the business of your publicly elected California Legislature was, well, public, since your public dollars pay these public servants to make public decisions in the public's Capitol building. Is there a theme in that sentence? There ought to be, especially with the editorial board today bemoaning the Assembly's decision to expunge the record of the individual votes of its members on whether or not to allow drilling off the Santa Barbara coast. In other words, you can't find out how your own Assembly member voted.

Assembly members sometimes complain, privately, that their constituents just don't understand how difficult it is to make laws and balance a budget. But making the very public process of lawmaking into a secret ritual doesn't help matters. On the contrary, it makes Californians feel like they are part of the stuff being fed into the meat grinder.

The board also weighs in on the latest maneuvers to stop a worthy bill that would extend hate-crime laws to cover crimes against gays and lesbians. Since conservative lawmakers in Washington D.C. weren't getting anywhere with the specious argument that halting hate crimes against people because of their sexual orientation would somehow impinge on the perpetrators' freedom of speech and religion, they've come up with a new tactic: making certain hate crimes a capital offense, thus changing the congressional conversation from one about equal rights to one about the death penalty.

And though the people of Afghanistan have a million good reasons to mistrust the election process, the editorial board notes the importance of holding new presidential elections and giving voters hope that they can, at least eventually, have an impact on changing the government that has turned out a disappointment to many of them.

On the other side of the fold, Tim Rutten reprimands Police Chief William Bratton for the timing of his departure from Los Angeles and some of the dealings that took place beforehand:

...The manner and timing of Bratton's departure is almost breathtakingly irresponsible. It also raises troubling questions about his relationship with Michael Cherkasky, the court-appointed monitor who evaluated the LAPD's compliance with the federal consent decree, and about Cherkasky's role in convincing the federal judge to terminate oversight of the department.

And a professor in Mexico calls on President Obama to do more than praise Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his courage in the war on drugs; he must also remind Calderon that the human-rights abuses that his army is accused of in that war are unacceptable.

Photo: Philip Scott Andrews / AP

They aren't the infamous Tango's dads (we'll get to that later) but the forces opposing same-sex marriage see vindication in nature--or at least in the San Francisco Zoo, where a couple of male penguins who formed a long partnership have split.

Harry and Pepper shared a burrow together for six years, even hatching a surrogate chick, until Linda the widow came along, newly bereaved by her (male) partner Fig's death and Harry decided to, uh, chase some tail. The two burrowed in together and Linda laid two eggs.

A sign that gay couples are doomed, as the Proposition 8 supporters claim? Let's check 3,000 miles acorss the continent where a much more famous pair of male penguins live at the Central Park Zoo. Roy and Silo not only hatched an egg together, and raised baby Tango, but they all became characters, alternately celebrated and maligned, in the children's book "And Tango Makes Three." The zoo never got back to me with official word about the ornithological literary figures, but an employee told me informally that the two are still alive and well and together. But their book has been banned in numerous schools.

So this makes what of the whole argument about same-sex marriage for humans? Perhaps only a reminder that penguins do not seem as inclined to judge their peers' preferences as humans are.

Photo of two king penguins who are cute but not Harry, Pepper, Roy or Silo by Martin Meissner/AP 

Here's a look at the blogosphere's reactions to the work of the Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division this week:

The Opine Editorials, a blog in defense of marriage, disagrees with this week's Times' editorial about the California Marriage Amendment, chiding its remarks as "marriage neutering."

In this post, the No More Tobacco Taxes blog puts forth a different take on the proposed tobacco tax, arguing that tobacco should not be targeted because it's "PC." This -- and the press release from the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers also posted on the blog -- both mention the Times editorial, which favors the tax and the much-needed revenue it would generate for California.

Global Americana Institute President Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, linked to Babak Rahimi's op-ed in its broader discussion of the media coverage of the political turmoil and protests in Iran.

John Brown's Public Diplomacy and Press and Blog Review, Version 2.0 included Ben Ehrenreich's op-ed on torture as part of America's tradition in his roundup of blogs related to public diplomacy.

The Mahablog picked up on Douglas W. Kmie's op-ed that stated substituting the term "civil union" for "marriage" in the ongoing struggle for gay marriage legality would be a win-win situation. The Mahablog counters that the two terms are not the same, "marriage" implying that the status is backed by both the state and a religious entity while "civil union" only ensures the former's support.

American Chronicle cited the Times' June 17 editorial against the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to deny prisoners access to DNA testing, saying the editorial voiced the "dismay of millions within US and rest of the world on the subject."

Finally, KCET's blog used two of Tim Rutten's columns on traffic congestion and the implementation of toll roads in its discussion of the equity of congestion pricing in Los Angeles.