I usually dislike books labeled as “memoir” (though I occasionally read them), because I’ve always known they can’t be trusted.

In fact, when the whole Million-Little-Pieces debacle unfolded a few years ago, I was bemused by the “Shocked! Shocked!” reaction it provoked. Seriously, now: Were daytime-television bookclubbers really surprised to discover that “memoir” is French for “big fat self-serving lie”?

Besides, even if a memoirist endeavors to be as truthful as memory allows, he or she will still get something wrong. I myself, the earthly avatar of Honesty and Cub-Scoutiness, have discovered that I often just flat misremember things. Last year, for example, I wrote an essay for Eat Our Brains in which I described a childhood game that I said had no name, but that I would refer to as “Dizzy Idiots.” Then, a few months ago, my Baby Brother (who could now crush me ‘twixt his thumb and forefinger like an overripe grape) reminded me that the game I had described did have a name. It was called “Tornado.”

[Well, Baby Brother would have a better memory of that game than I would. He was the one who wound up in the Emergency Room because of it.]

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In a rare and wonderful moment of good sense, the California State Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry. I particularly like the fact that the decision shuts the door on the “but what will that do to “normal” marriage?” wheeze:

“The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.

Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry “will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage,” George said.

In addition, he said, the current state law, enacted in 1977 and reaffirmed by the voters in 2000, discriminates against same-sex couples on the basis of their sexual orientation - discrimination that the court, for the first time, put in the same legal category as racial or gender bias.

I can think of all sorts of reasons for not loving the person my child wants to marry (Rory enumerated some of them–I’m less concerned about issues of a motorcycle nature, and more concerned with whether the person says “I could care less” when she/he means “I couldn’t care less,”) but gender just isn’t one of them. Love is its own reason; everything else is plumbing.