From the Coastline Pilot:
Costa Mesa-based Whittier Law School Professor Judith Daar wrote in an email that, on a practical level, allowing same-sex marriage will give gay and lesbian couples' children, "the benefit of parental certainty." Daar, who is also a clinical professor at UC Irvine's School of Medicine, wrote that while California law has "become increasingly supportive of the rights of unmarried, same-sex couples to enjoy legal recognition as parents, the status of being married provides the most comprehensive protection of those rights." "To me, that's a small part of it, but I think it's an important part of today's monumental decisions," she said in a phone interview. UC Irvine political science professor Tony Smith called Wednesday "a great day for the Constitution," in spite of the questions the court's Proposition 8 decision raised about the state ballot initiative process. That, he said, was "undermined" in a "pretty substantial and dramatic way."

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