From the New York Times:

Saying that it discriminates against gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions at least a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court. …

Judge Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, wrote,“Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause … Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.”

And there was much rejoicing in the streets.

Even Paris Hilton gets why a ban on gay marriage is absurd. She tweeted, “What a huge historical day for equal rights in this country! They finally overturned Prop 8! There shouldn’t be a law on true love. ”

I never thought I’d say this, but Paris Hilton is right.

Why conservatives make such a fuss over gay marriage, I just don’t understand.

Conservatives like private wealth, right? If you want your city to prosper, says Richard Florida, a George Mason University professor, encourage it to become more gay-friendly. Florida wrote a paper called “There Goes the Neighborhood,” in which he refers to a “Bohemian-Gay Index” to show how artistic and gay populations increase property values.

Are these people worried about the gays turning others gay? Spreading AIDS? Then marriage would be a way to encourage faithfulness over promiscuity. As a fabulous Funny or Die video (below) put it, “”If you disagree with the homosexual lifestyle, support overturning Prop 8, and make them get married like the rest of us.”

Yesterday was a big step toward the day where we don’t have any use for the term “gay marriage” anymore. Whether the couple is gay or straight, their marriage will be just regular ol’ marriage.

We do still have a ways to go before gay marriage is legal and accepted everywhere, but for today, let’s celebrate this historic victory in my home state. You did me proud, California. Let’s take this thing to the Supreme Court.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite songs, “City Hall” by Vienna Teng, about a couple getting married in her hometown of San Francisco in February 2004:

Ten years waiting for this moment of fate
when we say the words and sign our names
If they take it away again someday
this beautiful thing won’t change.

That makes me cry every time.

Here are three food blogs from my food-and-drink-loving friends, whom I insist that you meet.

1. I Love Tongs

My friend Heather writes a food blog, I Love Tongs, and gave our new blog a sweet shout-out. She and her husband, Grant, are honestly two of the funniest people I have ever met. They are childhood sweethearts who now have an incredibly cute son, whose photos you can “aww” over on “I Love Tongs.” You can also ogle the awesome dishes that Heather cooks up.

2. Feed the Empire

“The Empire” is the tongue-in-cheek name of the creative behemoth that Gill and her college friends (now my friends, too) have dreamed of for years. We can only imagine what we’ll continue to cook up together, edible and otherwise.

Feed the Empire is the collaborative foodie blog that this group of friends and I keep up casually. This is where we share our favorite recipes, from the simple to the fancy-pants, and our stories about enjoying them. I am dying to have a fancy dinner party along the lines of my sister’s New Orleans Supper Club Event.

3. Tiny Biscuits

Another pair who embody the Eat, Drink and Be Married philosophy are Drew and Kaytie, a couple of Jacksonians who are amazing chefs and food photographers. They write the blog Tiny Biscuits and are the kind of people you definitely want to invite to your potluck (or pay to cater it). Check out their tips for infusing your own liquors.

Heather and Grant. Gill and Brian. Katie and Josh. Kaytie and Drew. These are some of my favorite couples, because they love to eat and drink as much as they dig each other.

The first week of February was an eventful one. We moved into a new apartment that, with a home office, promised a much better work/life balance than what we’d been experiencing. We landed a monthly social media client with a national-level retailer. Our two-year anniversary of dating was approaching. A television commercial starring us for a regional cell phone carrier began airing, with a money boost to match.

Melia and I had been living together successfully for a year, and as we talked more and more casually about our future life together, it was time to lock down those plans. “Put a ring on it,” as Beyonce would say. (I liked it.)

Since Melia arrived in Jackson, we’d been going nonstop, building up our branding practice, taking on too many clients and figuring out how to balance everything. There were so many projects up in the air that dealing with a wedding would feel like just another project, with too many details on which to focus, and that’s not how I wanted it to be.

With so much beginning to fall into place, though, the abstract “next level of stability” that I was envisioning had suddenly arrived. I e-mailed my mom, who had our family heirloom engagement ring, and told her I was ready. I instructed her to “be cool” so as not to alert Melia and pass me the ring at our weekly lunch. I’ll save the proposal for another blog post.

Addendum: I of course had already known I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Melia; that was the easy part! Our lifestyle was completely comfortable and full of laughter and fun. I knew I’d be excited and proud to commit to her in front of everyone important to me.

The first thing you should know about me is that my favorite things in life are eating, drinking, and love. There are many other things that I’m passionate about, like music and media and meaningful learning, but “Eat, Drink and Be Married” pretty much sums up my philosophy of life.

I know that marriage is not for everyone. Nor is it available to everyone, which kills me a little every time I think about it. I respect the straight couples who refuse to get married until gay couples also have that legal right. I suppose I justify my choice to get married the way Jennifer Love Hewitt probably justifies putting out a CD and a memoir. She gets special privileges because she happens to be famous, and I get special privileges because I happen to be straight. Even if we feel sheepish about it, we take advantage of what’s available to us. It’s important to be grateful for that, and to support those opportunities for everyone else. (Not that I’m requesting another The Day I Shot Cupid.)

So, as someone who is lucky enough to have the choice to get married, I had to decide if marriage was for me. I am not religious, so I didn’t need to enter the institution in order to legitimize my partnership. I’d had around 30 years of life experience under my belt and had read plenty about relationships, so I knew what I’d be sacrificing and gaining by getting married. All things considered, I was confident that I did want to get married one day, and that my ideal match would show up eventually.

When I started dating Darren in February of 2008, I fell in love with him quickly and knew early on that I wanted to marry him. We just made sense together. We made each other laugh until our stomachs hurt. We liked to do the same kinds of things, for the most part, and made an effort to “accept our partner’s influence” (as relationship expert John Gottman puts it) in the areas where we differed. Darren started going on walks with me (sometimes); I started watching baseball with him (sometimes). When we got engaged on February 3, 2010, we were both ready to commit to doing these things together over the long haul.

Even though I hoard water glasses on my bedroom dresser. Even though he never washes his coffee cup with soap.

I feel about Darren as Anna Quindlen feels about her husband, “that things do not really happen to me unless I have told them to him.”

I feel about marriage the way that Ellen DeGeneres described it when Oprah asked her and her wife, Portia de Rossi, “Was it important to you to be married?” Ellen replied, “Anybody who’s married knows that there is a difference. It feels like you’re home. There’s an anchor; there’s a safety. I mean, I’m going to be with her ’til the day I die, and I know that.”

What Ellen said — that’s why I’m getting married. It won’t always be easy, of course, but Darren and I will make sure that it’s always interesting. We plan to chart our journey on this blog, in the hopes that you’ll find something of interest here, too.