The original Sulu from the Star Trek television series and movies, actor George Takei and his longtime partner, Brad Altman, got married last Sunday in Los Angeles.  This was the second celebrity same-sex marriage in less than a month.  Television host Ellen DeGeneres and her partner, actress Portia de Rossi, were married at their California home on August 17th.

After California’s Supreme Court handed down a decision which would allow gay marriage under the state’s constitution in May, Takei and Altman announced that they would make their 21 year relationship legal.

Takei’s Star Trek co-stars Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) and Walter Koenig (Chekhov) served as maid of honor and best man.

“We’ve shared the good times as well as struggled through the bad,” Takei said. “He is my love and I can’t imagine life without him. Now, we can have the dignity, as well as all the responsibilities, of marriage. We embrace it all heartily.”

The California Supreme Court struck down the State’s ban on same-sex marriage on May 15, 2008. In a 4-3 opinion, the court held, “[u]nder these circumstances, we cannot find that retention of the traditional definition of marriage constitutes a compelling state interest. Accordingly, we conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional.” Referring to California Family Code section 300, the Court ordered that “the language of section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a union ‘between a man and a woman’ is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute, and… the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples.”  The State of California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples a month later.

The Takei/Altman and DeGeneres/deRossi weddings are the first high-profile same-sex marriages performed in California.  For more on the greater legal ramifications of the California ruling, be sure to check out our section on Same Sex Marriage.