The California Supreme Court overturned the state’s ban on gay marriage last week.

But the biggest news on this issue appeared to be its resulting in talk show host Ellen DeGeneres announcing that her and Portia de Rossi were engaged.

Congratulations to the couple, by the way.

But does the lack of mainstream attention to such a seemingly landmark ruling suggest that same-sex marriage has run its course as a political wedge issue.

Pollsters are cautioning that this ridiculous issue may still return to center stage in the general election this fall.

“There is no reason to think [gay marriage] should be less potent of an issue in 2008 than in 2004,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, told Politico.

“It is an issue that could cause further problems with those voters [with] whom Barack Obama is already having trouble — white working-class voters.”

Previously, the November 2003 Massachusetts high court ruling legalizing gay marriage crystallized that issue as a divisive focal point for Republicans.

By February, 2004 - after San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples - President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment to ban it. Thankfully, that proposal didn’t gain much momentum.

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Sen. John McCain was on Ellen DeGeneres’ show today and she brought one of the subjects he least wants to talk about: gay marriage.

Ellen started by saying that she wanted to address “the elephant in the room.” McCain would have preferred Mitt Romney in costume.

McCain does not believe in gay marriage. He told the openly gay talk show host, who plans to wed her fiancee following the California Supreme Court’s ruling: “I just believe in the unique status of marriage between man and woman. And I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue.”

Ellen DeGeneres responded to John McCain in typically strong fashion.

“I think that it is looked at, and some people are saying the same, the way blacks and women did not have the right to vote. Women just got the right to vote in 1920. Blacks didn’t have the right to vote ’til 1870,” she said. “It just feels like there’s this old way of thinking that we are not all the same. We are all the same people. All of us. You’re no different than I am. Our love is the same.”

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California’s Supreme Court overturned the state’s gay marriage ban Thursday, joining Massachusetts as the only U.S. states to allow same sex marriage.

Given the historic presidential race taking place, the timing of the ruling on the most divisive issues in politics can’t be ignored.

Is this still a so-called “wedge” issue - and will it play a role in the campaign?

With those questions in mind, here are the three remaining U.S. presidential candidates’ positions on same sex marriage.

Barack Obama

Opposes same-sex marriage but supports civil unions that confer the same legal rights that married couples have. Voted against the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as heterosexual.

On the California ruling, his campaign said in a statement: “Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as president. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.”

Hillary Clinton

Opposes same-sex marriage but supports civil unions that confer the same legal rights that married couples have. Voted against the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as heterosexual.

John McCain

Committed to “the unique status and sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.” Voted against a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as heterosexual. Supports individual states’ rights to regulate and determine the status of marriage within those states.

Massachusetts has company.

The California Supreme Court struck down the Golden State’s ban on same sex marriage Thursday in a broadly-worded, landmark ruling that invalidates virtually all laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

The 4-3 ruling declared that the state Constitution protects a fundamental “right to marry” that extends equally to same-sex couples.

The majority opinion, by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, declared that any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation will be treated the same way as laws that discriminate by race or gender.

The decision was a surprise from the moderately conservative, Republican court that legal scholars have long dubbed “cautious.”

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “respects” and says he will not attempt to overturn the state supreme judicial court’s ruling.

It’s not over, however - the scope of the court’s decision could be thrown into question by an initiative heading toward the November ballot.

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Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama sent an open letter to the gay community this week. The Obama campaign will also taking out full page ads in GLBT newspapers in Ohio and Texas beginning Friday.

Some may say this letter doesn’t go far enough, and maybe it doesn’t, but Barack proposes some bold initiatives. We aren’t holding our breath for an open letter from John McCain to the same group of Americans, let’s just leave it at that.

As the candidate offering our best chances for legitimate change, we’ve come to expect as much from Barack. The real challenge will be backing it up.

Here’s Obama’s letter to the LGBT community …

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I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all - a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters.

It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.

Equality is a moral imperative.

Throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation.

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Al Gore, private citizen, continues to do much more to shape the global political debate than Al Gore, senator or vice president.

We are all familiar for his amazing work on climate change. Now Gore, who as vice president supported the Defense of Marriage Act, posted a video on his Current TV Web site in which he stands up for gay marriage:

“Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage … I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage.”

The Politico notes that this pushes the Democratic establishment toward a position he now shares with some leading Dems, and may prompt grumbling in gay political circles that this batch of candidates aren’t there.

Indeed, all three Democratic contenders support equal rights for gay and lesbian couples, but have sought to woo gay voters indirectly: Elizabeth Edwards has voiced support for same-sex marriage, while Barack Obama recently chastised the black church for its history of homophobia.

Will Al Gore’s comments up the ante?

President George W. Bush says he is happy for Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary, who is expecting a child with her partner, Heather Poe.

In an exclusive year-end interview, the President told People that despite his opposition to gay marriage, he’s happy for the Vice President and his daughter.

“The Vice President took me aside and gave me the good news. He and his wife, Lynne, are very happy for Mary,” Bush said.

In 2005, Bush said that “ideally, a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman.” Ballot initiatives banning gay marriage in several key states played a major role in securing his re-election bid in 2004.

Asked if he still felt that way, knowing Mary Cheney and her partner, he said:

“I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I’m happy for her.”

Mary Cheney, 37, and Poe, 45, have been together for 15 years and are expecting their first child late in the spring. Cheney’s other daughter, Elizabeth, has five children.

Although Mary Cheney was a key aide on her father’s 2004 campaign, she has said she disagrees with Bush’s stance on gay marriage. Dick Cheney voiced his difference of opinion as well, but stated matter-of-factly that Bush sets the policy for the administration.

“I am in favor of legalized same sex marriage,” Mary Cheney said. “But in the campaign, I had no doubt, even with that disagreement, that President Bush was the absolute best person to be leading us at this time in our country’s history.”

Mary Cheney’s sexual orientation has, understandably, become a sticking point in a decade in which gay rights have risen to the forefront of public debate. In 2002, she joined the gay-friendly Republican Unity Coalition and said that sexual orientation should be “a non-issue for the Republican Party”, with a goal of “equality for all gay and lesbian Americans.”

The organization soon vanished after the 2004 election, however, and Mary resigned from the RUC’s board in July 2003 to become the director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney 2004 Presidential re-election campaign.

In 2004, the Bush administration supported the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have limited marriage to heterosexuals and also banned civil unions and domestic partnership benefits. Some pundits believe the bill, which had little chance of passing Congress, was an appeal to the party’s conservative base.

Mary Cheney did not publicly express her view until her autobiography, Now It’s My Turn, where she stated her opposition to the amendment, yet felt it important, nevertheless, to support the president’s re-election bid as she felt only he was capable of protecting the country from terrorist attacks.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is all about repressing gay rights now, but was his position on this current hot topic the same as 12 years ago?

Mitt is under scrutiny after the re-emergence of a letter he wrote during his 1994 run for U.S. Senate in which he promised a gay Republicans group he would be a stronger advocate for gays than Sen. Edward Kennedy, who he ultimately lost to that November.

These views are in contrast with his current opposition to gay marriage as Romney positions himself as a committed conservative in preparation for an expected 2008 run for the Republican presidential nomination.

The 1994 letter was written to the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts, a gay Republican group, when Romney courted gay voters during his unsuccessful campaign against Kennedy, according to the Associated Press.

Citing Kennedy’s record of advocacy for gays and lesbians, Romney wrote:

“For some voters, it might be enough to simply match my opponent’s record in this area. But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.”

A gay-oriented Massachusetts newspaper, Bay Windows, has also released a transcript of a 1994 interview with Romney during the Senate race in which he pledged strong advocacy for the gay community.

“I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican party, and I would be a voice in the Republican party to foster anti-discrimination efforts,” Romney said, according to the transcript.

In the same interview, Romney said he opposed then-U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms’ legislative amendment to ban federal funding for public schools that support homosexuality as a lifestyle alternative.

“I don’t think the federal government has any business dictating to local school boards what their curriculum or practices should be,” Romney said, according to the transcript.

“I think that’s a dangerous precedent in general. I would have opposed that. It also grossly misunderstands the gay community by insinuating that there’s an attempt to proselytize a gay lifestyle on the part of the gay community.”

Romney also said he supported President Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays serving in the armed forces, describing it as “the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military.”

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said Romney’s comments were “quite disturbing.”

“This is going to create a lot of problems for Governor Romney,” he told The New York Times. “He is going to have a hard time overcoming this.”

Noted conservative Paul Weyrich told The Times, “Unless he comes out with an abject repudiation of this, I think it makes him out to be a hypocrite.”

Romney was wrapping up a weeklong trip to Asia on Saturday and could not be reached for comment. In an e-mail statement, a spokesman said as governor, Romney has never advocated changing the military’s policy toward gays and has consistently supported traditional values.

Romney recently became a plaintiff in a lawsuit that will force the state Legislature to vote on a constitutional amendment that would reverse the state’s landmark 2003 court ruling legalizing gay marriage. State lawmakers have refused to vote on the amendment, effectively killing it.

Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said she cautioned gay and lesbians against believing Romney’s overtures in 1994, and said conservatives shouldn’t trust him, either.

“He can’t be trusted,” she said. “Because if it is politically expedient for him to swing to his right or swing to his left, he will do it.”