Same-sex couples in California (and Massachusetts, etc.) have never really had all the benefits of marriage, because the US government has not recognised either their civil unions or their marriages for legal and tax purposes.
Getting the benefits of federal recognition of same-sex civil unions is worth much much more than a state letting you refer to it as "marriage". This is the huge inequality that must be addressed. And if enough state supreme courts find the same way as Massachusetts and California (for equal-right civil unions), then eventually an Obama-picked US Supreme Court will render a similar opinion.
