Few days pass without someone taking offense at something we do here. It's not that we go out of our way to be offensive. In fact, we hope to avoid it. But in the news business, we try hard to reflect the big and small truths of life, and sometimes that ruffles feathers.

Today we're doing something that might trouble some folks. In the Family Life section you'll see a wedding announcement for James Robert Tidmarsh and Ryan Frank Jensen of Twin Falls.

Let's not beat around the bush here. They're both men. They're from Idaho. They're registered at Wal-Mart.

In the past, the Times-News segregated same-sex marriage announcements, placing them under the heading "Celebrations" rather than putting them with weddings. This was a compromise that allowed us to acknowledge the event without giving it equal status with the nuptials of those displaying a variety of genders. Moreover, Idaho doesn't allow same-sex marriages.

But in May the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to wed. That right extends even to people from other states. So on July 5 at the Chapel of the Bells in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Mr. Tidmarsh and Mr. Jensen were legally wed.

On returning home, they submitted the standard wedding announcement to their hometown paper. We last saw one of these back in 2004, I'm told, after the state of Massachusetts started allowing same-sex residents or soon-to-be residents to get hitched. After some brief discussion around the office, I decided that it's time to update our policy. From here on out, we'll treat all legal marriages in any state exactly the same.

If you're expecting me to now put up a ringing defense of gay marriage and invite you to argue all about the effects of such unions on Western Civilization, small children or the price of diesel fuel, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place.

My reason for changing course here is simple: If two couples come in the door with identical marriage licenses lawfully issued by the same state or nation, who are we to say one marriage is a wedding while the other is just a celebration?

And if putting the Tidmarsh-Jensen union in the Wedding column offends you, chances are you'd be equally offended if we ran it at all, under any heading.

I'm also willing to give you all the benefit of the doubt when it comes to adapting to changing times. In fact, we all do it all the time.

Decades ago children born out of wedlock were marked for life with the word "illegitimate" stamped on their birth certificates. They were doomed from birth to live a life of shame, treated as lesser beings by society at large.

Newspapers followed convention. Each year when they would rush down to the local maternity ward to mark the arrival of the New Year's Baby, they would skip any who lacked married parents.

Now we run their names and those of their unattached parents in the Stork Report.

No one bats an eye.

Editor James G. Wright may be reached at 208-735-3255 or james.wright@lee.net.