one aspect of the California-gay marriages hub-bub that everyone seems to be missing......

is the complete disregard for the rule of law in the midst of a socially charged issue. No matter what your stance on gay marriages, I just can't find any rationale that would permit the mayor of SF to "break the law" by sanctioning such weddings.

If the mayor or others felt that this law was in error or unjust, there are many channels to address the perceived injustice. How about suing in state court (as in Mass.), lobbying the state legislature, or perhaps starting a drive to have this on the ballot during the November elections ("Proposition XXX," or the like)?

Regardless of your feelings on the gay marriage issue (and I haven't yet figured my feelings out yet), I don't think the mayor of SF can choose which laws to enforce and which to openly flaunt, any more than I can choose which traffic laws to obey. ("I don't agree that this road should be only 25, so I'll just go 50 mph.")

I'm gonna predict that it's just a matter of time before some clever mayor does to the drug laws what the SF mayor has done to the marriage laws.