Just minutes after the California Supreme Court handed down its ruling on gay marriage this morning, the internet was ablaze with Prop 8 outrage and disappointment over the loss of an equality that could’ve been. While gay rights protesters in San Francisco locked arms to stop traffic outside the Supreme Court building, Tweeters took to the net to organize tweet-ups and vigils nationwide this evening. So far, impromptu mobilizations have been planned in San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles.

Although the ruling did uphold the existing 18,000 gay marriages in California, the future of same-sex marriage is very much up in the air. When the California court upheld gay marriage in a May 2008 ruling, California became only the second state in the union to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Since then, four other states (Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Iowa) have legalized gay marriage, citing California as an early model. What the ongoing struggle over Prop 8 may mean for traditional marriage movements in these states and nationally is still uncertain. Although it has not yet been confirmed, some say a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue is inevitable, given the high court’s history of answering on “Culture War” issues. (You can bet that today’s ruling will only add to the GOP’s grilling of Supreme Court-nominee Sonia Sotomayor on her pro-gay rights views.) Even if the appeal does not make it to Washington, it will show up at the polls. Gay rights groups are already working to put a constitutional amendment to allow gay marriage on the ballot in California as early as next year.

Although the ruling came as a shock to Americans who viewed the case as a struggle over basic rights, some legal analysts said the ruling was to be expected given the weakness of the arguments to overturn Prop 8. Gay marriage supporters argued that the proposition was more akin to a constitutional “revision” than an amendment; that is, it attempted to fundamentally change the constitution. The argument has been used in other cases, and it has generally failed. The Justices–even those who voted in favor of gay marriage in last year’s case–were also reluctant to overturn a law that had been approved by voters. Attempting to avoid activist judicial legislation, it seems that the court may be waiting for public opinion on the issue of gay marriage to change, as recent polls suggest it is. Said Chief Justice Ronald M. George in the majority opinion:

Our task in the present proceeding is not to determine whether the provision at issue is wise or sound as a matter of policy or whether we, as individuals, believe it should be a part of the California Constitution…Our role is limited to interpreting and applying the principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs and values.

That being said, Justice Carlos Moreno–the court’s only Democrat–said that the gay rights debate does not lend itself to judicial conservativism. In the sole dissent, Moreno said Prop 8 “places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities.”

Photo from ProComKelly’s Flickr photostream (Creative Commons)