Rebel Prince

Tonight we (along with AGLA) will be watching Washington Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest, and appropriately enough, dark clouds have gathered and it’s been pouring rain for the last hour or so.

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak’d,
I cried to dream again. (III.ii)

The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. (I’ve seen and/or read only a handful of them, mostly the major ones on typical high-school reading lists. Sometime last year I bought the complete works of Shakespeare in a single volume, thinking I would re-read the standards and get into the more obscure stuff, but still the book sits patiently on the bookshelf, waiting to be opened.) I’ve seen The Tempest performed once thus far, about ten years ago—was it that long ago?—at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I was a senior in high school, and our English class went on a two-day field trip to the festival in Ashland, Ore., about 350 miles north of San Francisco. I remember being quite impressed with the production, which was held in festival’s flagship venue, the open-air Elizabethan Theatre. Definitely a perfect play to watch under the stars.

Or with the thunder roaring and rain tap-tapping outside.

[Addendum (23 Aug): There’s an article (“Room and Bard”) about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the travel section of Sunday’s Post.]

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Today the California Supreme Court will file its decision on the same-sex marriage licenses issued in San Francisco earlier this year.

Most legal experts expect the court to find that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s actions violated state laws, but it’s unclear whether the seven justices will invalidate the 3,955 marriages that took place between Feb. 12 and March 11. The court will not resolve the question of whether same-sex couples have the right to marry under the state constitution.

The ruling will be posted on the court’s website at 10 a.m. PT.

[Update (12:56): From the opinion, posted minutes ago:

[W]e agree with petitioners that local officials in San Francisco exceeded their authority by taking official action in violation of applicable statutory provisions. We therefore shall issue a writ of mandate directing the officials to enforce those provisions unless and until they are judicially determined to be unconstitutional and to take all necessary remedial steps to undo the continuing effects of the officials’ past unauthorized actions, including making appropriate corrections to all relevant official records and notifying all affected same-sex couples that the same-sex marriages authorized by the officials are void and of no legal effect.

To avoid any misunderstanding, we emphasize that the substantive question of the constitutional validity of California’s statutory provisions limiting marriage to a union between a man and a woman is not before our court in this proceeding, and our decision in this case is not intended, and should not be interpreted, to reflect any view on that issue. We hold only that in the absence of a judicial determination that such statutory provisions are unconstitutional, local executive officials lacked authority to issue marriage licenses to, solemnize marriages of, or register certificates of marriage for same-sex couples, and marriages conducted between same-sex couples in violation of the applicable statutes are void and of no legal effect. Should the applicable statutes be judicially determined to be unconstitutional in the future, same-sex couples then would be free to obtain valid marriage licenses and enter into valid marriages.

Full PDF or Word document available.]

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