(via Kevin Drum) California is lumbering towards equity for same-sex couples:

Businesses that provide discounts, special services or other privileges to married couples must extend the same rights and benefits to same-sex couples registered as state domestic partners, the California Supreme Court decided 6-0 on Monday.

The ruling was based on a case involving a lesbian couple’s use of country club facilities. Spouses were allowed to play for free, as well as “the live-in girlfriends and boyfriends, and grandchildren, of heterosexual members from the extra fees, while denying the same benefits to same-sex couples.” It seems pretty clear that the club didn’t have a leg to stand on, given those kinds of standards, since the only pragmatic reason they could give was “that extending membership benefits to unrelated friends might lead to overuse of the facilities and discourage the friends from purchasing their own memberships.”

Because, you know, I’d be totally willing to enter into a domestic partnership with someone solely for the perks of free golf at their country club.

But in any case, hooray for California, and let’s hope the marriage thing goes through as well.