The California Supreme Court has ruled that, in its view, the people who brought Proposition 8 to the ballot — the initiative that halted California’s same-sex marriages — have the “standing” to back that law in court. Exactly what does that mean? It’s complicated. Learn more from Chris Geidner, here.

E.J. Graff writes on social-justice and human-rights issues, particularly discrimination and violence against women and children; marriage and family policy; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and the author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).