The California Supreme Court will rule this year that the California constitutional guarantee of equal protection requires that the state allow gay and lesbian marriages. Here are my reasons:

Just before the holidays, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Carole Corrigan to the California Supreme Court. While completely ignored by the GLBT media, Corrigan is (perhaps) the first lesbian appointed to the California Supreme Court. As the Los Angeles Times reported, she lives in Oakland with her live-in girlfriend. (You do the math.) She served as a prosecutor in Oakland and was a registered Democrat, but changed her registration to Republican after being appointed to the bench. Her opinions on the Court of Appeal show that, like the governor, she is socially moderate but conservative on law and order issues.

Corrigan’s appointment shifts the ideological balance of the California Supreme Court in a progressive direction. By my count, the court will rule (perhaps unanimously) that any laws, policies or practices denying equal rights to anyone because of sexual orientation are unconstitutional. It’s really nothing new, because the court has ruled on this matter before, specifically in cases where police practices singled out gay men. On the marriage issue, this means that any attempt to limit marriage based upon sexual orientation is illegal under the California Constitution, including the voter-approved Proposition 22 (defining marriage as between a man and a woman).

Other initiative attempts to amend the California Constitution to prohibit equal rights would be met with the same fate. If, for example, voters did approve any measure to single out gays and lesbians for lesser treatment, then it would run afoul of the federal Constitution.

Over 50 years ago, voters here repealed fair housing laws and amended the California Constitution to allow discrimination based upon race in housing. The California Supreme Court threw it out, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, finding that federal law does not allow the electorate to decide who will live free.

What’s happened in the last 60 days in California is short of amazing. Look what the governor did after he vetoed the same-sex marriage law: He said the issue was not up to him, but was up to the courts and the voters. First, he signed a law prohibiting discrimination based upon both marital status and sexual orientation. That bill specifically does not allow any defense based upon religious beliefs. The new law applies to every public agency and private business. Obviously, the state can hardly require private businesses to be bias free and then say that the state is free to ignore it in its marital laws. The governor knew what signing this bill meant in the legal case for same-sex marriage. That’s because attorneys supporting the bill (like me) lobbied him to sign it, while opponents begged him not to sign it.

Second, his top political adviser, wife Maria, appointed gay Democrat Dan Zignale as her chief of staff. After the defeat of Arnold’s initiatives in November, the governor said, “I should have listened to my wife.” Well, now he is.

So, thirdly, he appointed Susan Kennedy, a lesbian Democrat, as his chief deputy. And she’s married to her partner. By appointing Kennedy, he also signaled to the right that he has no issue with “gay marriage,” and he would oppose any initiatives that would limit gay rights. Without the governor’s support, the backers of these measures can’t get money and signatures.

And, lastly, the Schwarzenegger nominated Corrigan, a moderate and a lesbian, to the California Supreme Court. He had considered three other conservative judges to replace hard-core conservative Janice Rogers Brown, the first African-American woman on the court. But in the end, he appointed a moderate lesbian to the court.

The anti-gay right wing of the Republican Party is seething. The governor has rebuffed them at every turn, and has stayed true to his word that he supports full equality for GLBTs.

With the defeat of Prop. 73 (parental notice for a minor’s abortion), the right wing suffered a huge loss. By defeating a rather benign measure, California voters showed their disgust with attempts by the right wing to turn our government into a theocracy. And the defeat of that measure showed legislators and judges that the right wing cannot defeat socially progressive policies and judges at the polls.

So same-sex marriage will be a reality in California within the year, and there’s little the right can do about it.