Unless there's a last-second stop, same sex marriages will start tomorrow in Massachussetts. In the meantime, it looks like the issue has been tabled in California - at least for the short term.

An SF Gate article reports that while the California Assembly may still vote this year on a bill to legalize gay marriages, the issue has, for now, been placed on hold while the Appropriations Committee reviews it for fiscal impact:

The deadline for bills to come off the committee's "suspense" file is May 21. Before then, committee chair Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park (Los Angeles County), agreed to look at a study presented at the hearing Wednesday morning, which found that allowing same-sex couples to marry would inject more than $20 million annually into the state economy.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who introduced the legislation, said while he would continue to push for passage of the bill, he didn't want to take it to the floor until he was confident of success. He does not yet have the 41 votes needed.

While same sex foes claim that gay marriage will drain money from the state income tax coffers, advocates counter that it will actually save California millions of dollars "because fewer individuals would be eligible for state benefit programs, such as Medi-Cal and CalWORKS. "

And so basically this is what it may all be decided by? How much it may or may not finanically benefit the state?

Perhaps that's oversimplifying the question, the situation as a whole.

Then again, maybe not.