California Supreme Court: Marriage between man and car OK!*

And this guy is stoked:

Edward Smith, who lives with his current "girlfriend" – a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, insisted that he was not "sick" and had no desire to change his ways.

"I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love," he said.

The recently-released opinion by the California Supreme Court has opened the door for Smith to marry one or all of his "girlfriends":

*San Francisco — The California Supreme Court today held that the California legislative and initiative measures limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state constitutional rights of same-sex couples, human-automobile couples, human-animal couples, human-plant couples, human-blowup doll couples, or any combination of the aformentioned in any number and may not be used to preclude these couples or groups from marrying. (In re Marriage Cases, S147999.)

Upon reviewing the numerous past California decisions that examine the underlying bases and significance of the constitutional right to marry, the opinion explains that the core substantive rights embodied in the right to marry “include, most fundamentally, the opportunity of an individual to establish — with the persons, automobiles, animals, plants, or blowup dolls with whom the individual has chosen to share his or her life — an officially recognized and protected family possessing mutual rights and responsibilities and entitled to the same respect, dignity and dysfunction accorded a union traditionally designated as marriage.”

The opinion then observes that “in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that our ideas of traditional marriage are ****ed up and antiquated. The ability to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with other persons, cars, animals, plants or blowup dolls and responsibly to care for and raise children or Cooper Minis does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation should be celebrated, out in the open and rewarded."

* Uh...not really. But we're kind of heading in that direction, aren't we?