The Los Angeles Times is printing an interview with Chief Justice Ronald M. George.  His Honor is a moderate Republican and was expected by many not to lead the court into these new waters.  The interview is about the man, not the decision.  The mechanics of the reaching the decision cannot be discussed until after the decision takes effect.  Who thought what, who said what, that sort of thing.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the days leading up to the California Supreme Court’s historic same-sex marriage ruling Thursday, the decision “weighed most heavily” on Chief Justice Ronald M. George — more so, he said, than any previous case in his nearly 17 years on the court.

The court was poised 4 to 3 not only to legalize same-sex marriage but also to extend to sexual orientation the same broad protections against bias previously saved for race, gender and religion. The decision went further than any other state high court’s and would stun legal scholars, who have long characterized George and his court as cautious and middle of the road.

But as he read the legal arguments, the 68-year-old moderate Republican was drawn by memory to a long ago trip he made with his European immigrant parents through the American South. There, the signs warning “No Negro” or “No colored” left “quite an indelible impression on me,” he recalled in a wide-ranging interview Friday.

“I think,” he concluded, “there are times when doing the right thing means not playing it safe.”

Yet he described his thinking on the constitutional status of state marriage laws as more of an evolution than an epiphany, the result of his reading and long discussions with staff lawyers.

Read the full interview here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo…

Great interview and worth a read!

Hat tip to Joe.My.God.