Good news, and somewhat unexpected. The US Supreme Court refused to rule unconstitutional the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court regarding gay marriage. The argument used by the anti-gay plaintiffs was that the US Constitution guarantees to the states a republican form of government (notice that's "little-R republican"), and that the Massachusetts court violated that guarantee by saying that gay marriage couldn't be blocked by the state, based on the Massachusetts constitution. The US Supreme Court said, in effect, "Don't make a federal case out of this." It's still possible that the people of Massachusetts may decide to amend their constitution to prohibit gay marriage, but that can't happen until 2006 at the earliest...by which time married gay couples will have been around for about 2 1/2 years, so people will have had about 2 1/2 years to see that the institution of marriage didn't crumble into dust.

Good news, and also unexpected. In South Africa, their next-to-highest court ruled that under their constitution gay couples could not be barred from marriage, provided they met the requirements of already-passed federal marriage laws. The decision (a 4-1 vote) was delivered by an openly gay, openly HIV+ justice. It could still be overturned by the Constitutional Court, but court-watchers in South Africa think that's highly unlikely.