How crazy was last week? SUPER CRAZY. It started with oral arguments on Monday in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the legal challenge to Prop 8. Those two-hour arguments were as wild and crazy as the case can possibly get, with the rest of the appeal happening behind closed doors. There's no telling when the ruling will come, or what it'll be.

Check out the zoo going on out front of the courtroom:

Highlights of the arguments: the judges were NOT AT ALL AMUSED by the anti-gay efforts of Imperial County, which messed up procedurally on multiple fronts. The judges are also skeptical of the ability of the anti-gay side to intervene at all, and might send the question over to the California Supreme Court, which would certainly slow things down. And the judges are closely focussed on the merits of the case -- in other words, they're asking quite rationally whether there is a basis to deny marriage equality. That's a good thing, because the answer is, obviously, "no."

There were (in our opinion) two big surprises at the trial, and one small one. Surprise number one was when Charles Cooper (one of the anti-gay lawyers) said that the institution of marriage is indistinguishable from the word "marriage." They're the same thing, he claimed. That's startling because, for one thing, it's just plain weird. (Couples denied the right to visit each other in the hospital would certainly disagree.) And for another thing, if marriage only exists to classify people, then denying marriage on the basis of sexual orientation is simply classification for the sake of communicating disapproval -- and that's a no-no.

The second big surprise was when David Boies explained that they didn't name every clerk as defendants because they didn't need to: when the court rules in his favor, he explained, the cooperative Governor and Attorney General will adjust the law to comply with the ruling. As one justice pointed out, he's very very lucky that the election wound up the way it did, with a supportive Governor (Jerry Brown) and Attorney General (Kamala Harris) winning.

As luck would have it, both Brown and Harris will be honored by Equality California in February at their annual Equality Awards. What a coincidence!

And the small surprise was just a pleasant turn of phrase by San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart. "Prejudice ... the belief that one group is less worthy," she said, "is not always borne of hatred. ... It may be a want of careful reflection or an instinct to guard against people who are different from ourselves."

With all that excitement, you might've missed the good news in Maryland: a supportive Senate may get some momentum behind a marriage equality bill. So keep your eye on MD.