(Charlie and I have traded a few emails to clarify positions, etc., so this is really just for anyone else following this thread. I've tried to incorporate our different perspectives in brackets, but I may not always capture the spirit of his comments.)

1) Ultimately, the rights that you mention already existed in CA, before the decision. Separate may not always be equal, but the state rights themselves are already equal here and have been since passed in 2003 (they went into effect in 2005).

By the same token, legislating gay marriage will not remove the social stigmatization. This is a utopian vision. Whether we have domestic partnership or gay marriage, people who discriminate and stigmatize will continue to do so. [Charlie noted a useful distinction between legal and social stigmatization.] I'd argue that there is often a conflation between these issues: people assume that legalizing gay marriage (removing the legal stigma) will automatically result in a removal of social stigma, but this doesn't seem to happen in the short term (see Massachusetts for example).

2) CA has already done this to the extent that is possible at the state level between the years of 1999-2003 by continually expanding the definition of domestic partner. As you note, this doesn't effect the federal level, but see #3.

3) Massachusetts legalized "gay marriage" some time ago, and it has not yet enabled people to successfully sue at the federal level as people suggest gay marriage should. This could change in the future, but for now, it hasn't materialized.

4) Seems already addressed above.

5) When I look at the rhetoric employed in single-issue activism that ultimately effects a small percentage of queers (let's face it, you might be partnered, but most queers aren't), I do not see co-opting. I see a blatant desire for normalization. It's all over the HRC website. And it's a waste of resources in the CA case since this decision hasn't added any tangible rights. It's a symbolic victory that very well may result in a loss of current rights in the future because of returning the issue to the voters who overwhelmingly support equal rights under the name domestic partnership and overwhelmingly reject those same rights under the name same-sex marriage.

LGBT people in most states in this country (35+) still do not have basic protection from legal discrimination in housing, employment, etc. And most states that do have these protections do not extend them to the trans community.[Charlie noted that there are many trans protections in effect, but that whether these are incorporated into laws banning orientation-based discrimination depends on how old those laws are. Good point.] Working toward this type of broad, coalitional issue, something that affects everyone at once, instead supporting single causes that really affect a select group of (usually) middle-class, white queers seems like a better use of nationwide resources.

Again, Wisconsin is a different case because DP benefits there are nowhere near as extensive as here and usually depend on the city. The big changes that you seem to think will happen for underprivileged populations in California are a myth. They have had these rights since 2005 if they filed for DP registration.

When I say that rights are equal, I'm only talking about state rights because that's what the fuss is about. People elsewhere assume that CA residents' state rights are now much better, but these will remain the same because any rights not already granted can only be granted at the federal level [a good point mentioned by Charlie].

Massachusetts was the big win in my book because it was the first and opened the doors to challenging the federal issues. I suppose one could argue that having two states legalize gay marriage is better than one, but I'm guessing that it will take a lot more than two states to create the critical mass needed to effect federal changes.

The ACLU's press release makes a big deal over this change being in California, as though the rest of the country somehow follows CA's trends like one big lemming, and this really isn't true. If it were, then instead of banning gay marriages across the country since 2003, other states would have installed comprehensive DP benefits like CA did. If this had happened in any other state (not MA, VT, NJ, or CA), I, too, would be elated. But I'm not sure what the CA case really adds that the MA case didn't already have, except that a second state did it. Why spend such resources in a state where there is already an enormous amount of equity?