Christie, of course, governs a state that, polls indicate, supports establishing same-sex marriage and protecting a woman’s reproductive rights. So how does he walk the fine line, governing effectively in a state whose constituents have progressive social values, without disqualifying himself from the 2016 Republican primaries in which conservative Tea Party activists are the gatekeepers to the nomination?

In 2003, New Jersey was one of the first states to pass “domestic partnerships,” but the state’s Supreme Court struck them down. In 2006, the New Jersey Legislature voted to permit “civil unions.” In 2009, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine committed to sign a marriage equality bill if the Democratic Legislature sent one to his desk. They weren’t able to make it happen in the few remaining months of Corzine’s term.

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Monday was the first chance for all but a handful of California's same-sex couples to wed since 2008, when about 18,000 couples got hitched in a brief window before a voter-approved ban.

Last week, the high court ruled that backers of Proposition 8 didn't have standing to defend the measure in court, and late Friday the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a stay, allowing some weddings that afternoon.

The Los Angeles County clerk-recorder's office logged 600 online marriage license applications over the weekend and posted extended hours Monday to deal with the crush.

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Within hours of the appeals court's action Friday, the four plaintiffs who in 2009 sued to overturn the ban had exchanged vows during hastily arranged ceremonies that drew crowds of well-wishers as the news spread that the weddings were back on.

"I was at work," lead plaintiff Kristen Perry said, adding that she rushed home to Berkeley to change into a gray suit so she could marry her now-wife Sandra Stier at San Francisco City Hall.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris declared Perry and Stier "spouses for life" as hundreds of supporters looked on and cheered from the balconies ringing the couple's perch under City Hall's rotunda. The other couple in the Supreme Court case, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, was married at Los Angeles City Hall 90 minutes later wearing matching white rose boutonnières and with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presiding.

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But when speaking to a more conservative audience in an interview with Glenn Beck, Paul warned that changing marriage laws could lead to bestiality: “It is difficult, because if we have no laws on this, people will take it to one extension further -- does it have to be humans?”

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USA Today isn't exactly a bastion of profound insight – it's best known as the newspaper you find outside your hotel room door in the morning. But it still deserves a very special shout-out for condescending, heterosplaining crap anyway. In the story, Sharon Jayson says that "Just because same-sex couples can legally marry doesn't mean they will" and that "marriage isn't for everyone." Whoa whoa whoa SLOW DOWN, USA Today. The Supreme Court didn't just make marriage mandatory for every homosexual in America? Jayson goes on to quote a University of Minnesota researcher who observes, "Some gays and lesbians clearly want to get married, but others are unsure or reject marriage for themselves." I feel a "The more you know" rainbow coming on here.

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The magazine found artist Jack Hunter's image, titled "Moment of Joy," on Tumblr. Hunter said, “It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime."

“This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate.”

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"The reason there are so many gay people now is because it's a chemical warfare operation," Jones said in a June 2010 clip that has gained renewed attention since the DOMA ruling. "I have the government documents where they said they're going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so people don't have children."

Cutting open a juice box to reveal the nefarious plastic lining laced with "estrogen mimickers," Jones continued, "After you're done drinking your little juices, you're ready to go out and have a baby. You're ready to put makeup on, you're ready to wear a short skirt." While there is some research that suggests plastics leach hormone-like chemicals, there's no evidence that they're harmful to one's health or that the government is involved in a secret plot to turn the country gay.

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The Twitter account for SCOTUSblog, a site run by a group of law professors and lawyers and sponsored by Bloomberg Law, has been taking some of the heat and having fun with it:

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The Supreme Court doesn't have an official presence on Twitter, but perhaps those angry at SCOTUS can commiserate with parody Antonin Scalia.

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While the ACLU previously pushed for a marriage between the show's gay couple, Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell’s (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), who together have adopted a girl named Lily, the show didn't want to cave into "political pressure," Lloyd told EW.

Now, however, “It’s certainly something we are contemplating on the show in ways we wouldn’t have in prior seasons," said Lloyd.

Lloyd told EW, “As you can imagine in Cam [Eric Stonestreet] and Mitchell’s [Jesse Tyler Ferguson] life, they would be feeling that a door has opened that was closed to them. Wouldn’t it be pretty tempting to think about walking through it? We imagine a lot of gay couples today are deciding whether to get married now that it’s open to them. From our standpoint, that’s something to explore.”

“It’s a funny thing, sitting around and celebrating for your characters on a day like this,” said Lloyd. “We were happy for Mitch and Cam today!”

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Colbert's advice for those who feel that the institution of marriage is now threatened: "Traditional marriage is as defenseless as a freshman frat pledge about to go through the spanking machine. So straight people listen up: If a gay charges your marriage, you're gonna want to puff yourself up -- make yourself seem bigger -- try to frighten 'it' off by talking in a firm loud voice about pleated denim or Jimmy Buffett."

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Don’t misunderstand me: This was a great day. Same-sex marriage came to California, and DOMA, a stupid, nasty law, is history. The Court acted well. But the judges’ opinions leaven the heroic tale with some comic relief.

DOMA declares, in pertinent part, that the word "marriage," wherever it appears in the U.S. Code, "means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." The rule applies indiscriminately across all federal laws, producing some weird results. Federal ethics rules bar officials from participating in matters in which their spouses have a financial interest — but not if they're same-sex spouses. It is a federal crime to assault, kidnap or kill a member of the immediate family of a federal official in order to influence or retaliate against that official — but not if you do that to a same-sex spouse. Ditto Social Security, federal pensions, taxation of inheritances (which was the issue in today's case), and over a thousand other provisions.

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But then the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and dismissed a Proposition 8 appeal, clearing the way for same-sex marriage in California.

Bell is far from the first straight person to boycott the institution in the name of marriage equality. Back in 2003, the Village Voice ran a piece about the trend of doing just that among progressive heterosexual couples. The National Marriage Boycott has gotten more than 15,000 signatures from gays and straights alike who have pledged to wait to marry until "full federal marriage equality" is achieved. Shortly after Bell's announcement, a straight couple that had "always said we wouldn't marry while our queer friends couldn't" took to MetaFilter to ask whether they should marry now, given the SCOTUS news.

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The fight will continue in the states, and conservative Republicans may even keep up the fight in Congress, but leadership is ready to throw in the towel. "While I am obviously disappointed in the ruling, it is always critical that we protect our system of checks and balances," Boehner told reporters today after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. "A robust national debate over marriage will continue in the public square, and it is my hope that states will define marriage as the union between one man and one woman." States, not Congress.

“It sounds to me that that battle will be moving to the states,” John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said. Eric Cantor hit the same tone, adding, "the marriage debate will continue in the states." "Congressional Republican leaders are speaking with resounding unity: the same-sex marriage fight is ending on Capitol Hill," Politico's Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson reported today.

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But once the confetti is swept off Christopher Street, gay men, women and advocacy organizations will be forced to face a question they haven't considered in more than a decade: What next?

After a fight for legal same-sex marriage that began with Hawaii's surprise legalization in 1993, gay advocacy groups have pursued marriage equality uber alles, eventually gaining not merely marriage rights in 13 states (as of this morning, when California rejoined the list) and an overturn of a restrictive Clinton-era policy.

And as the tide seems to have turned yet more decisively in favor of same-sex marriage across America, the question of what's next, after gay rights groups have effectively succeeded, is finally real -- as is the question of whether those groups were successful in large part because they were fighting for an issue that directly affected a vast proportion of the gay community.

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Of course, I should be clear: This was my world of social media. We are filtered by whom we follow and friend. If I associated with a different motley crew, the cries of joy and rage could easily flip places. Social conservatives believe that what happened in Texas Wednesday night was a travesty of democracy and that Jesus is weeping in dismay over the prospect of a flood of gay marriage in California. And they're on Twitter too.

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First there's DOMA: The Court held that Section 3 of the law, which defines "marriage" and "spouse" as only referring to unions between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. This means that couples in states that legally recognize same-sex marriages - and only in those states -  are now considered married under federal law, and can receive those benefits that federal law confers upon married couples. This amounts to over 1,000 benefits, all of which are listed at the United States General Accounting Office, and includes Social Security, death and other tax benefits (which were those benefits at issue in the case before the Court, called United States vs. Windsor).

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"Now that DOMA has been declared invalid by the U.S. Supreme Court, New Jersey should no longer discriminate by upholding civil unions and instead, grant full marriage which is now confirmed by our federal government," Gusciora told the Express-Times.

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In response -- with a tip of the hat to New York magazine's "approval matrix" -- we presented our gay marriage "courage-meter." On the x-axis is timing -- who was ahead of the curve, and who came to the party late. The y-axis represents who showed guts and risked political capital for their support.

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I'm not asking we forget marriage equality. I'm not requesting that one inch of the hard-fought ground gained Wednesday recede. I'm saying instead that as we recognize that two men or two women can forge together loving, enduring, legally recognized unions, it's time to retire the belittling phrase "gay marriage" itself, once and for all. Calling it "gay marriage" is like calling it "black marriage" or "geriatric marriage" or any other absurd, insulting modifier. It anoints the institution with otherness and makes it seem outside the norm. Marriage Substitute. Marriage Lite. I Can't Believe It's Not Marriage! The term doesn't even have the brilliant hilarity of American Family Association director Bryan J. Fischer's definition of the Supreme Court ruling Wednesday as a victory for "sodomy-based marriage." At least that sounds fun.

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