Ellen and Portia plan to wed in California

AFTER THE CALIFORNIA Supreme Court ruled Thursday that "limiting the designation of marriage to a union 'between a man and a woman' is unconstitutional," the path was cleared for gay couples in California to marry legally as soon as early June. And one of the first couples to announce plans to take advantage of it was none other than

Portia de Rossi

of "Arrested Development" and talk-show maven

Ellen DeGeneres

.

DeGeneres, recently referred to in The Advocate as "arguably pop culture's most popular lesbian," made the announcement on her show the day the decision came through that she was getting married to her girlfriend of four years, although the episode didn't air until yesterday.

The announcement was met with a standing ovation from the audience. When it died down, DeGeneres joked, "Thank you, I'll tell you who the lucky guy is soon."

This isn't the first time that DeGeneres has used her widespread appeal to promote gay rights; Degeneres and her character on the sitcom "Ellen" both came out in 1997 to huge media coverage. The character was the first openly gay lead on a prime-time sitcom; DeGeneres herself was one of the first high-profile actors in Hollywood to come out.

SatTatt wishes the couple a long, happy and fully legal marriage.

Cannes do

The Cannes Film Festival has been producing some entertaining stories this year, not least coming from actor, director and Cannes jury president Sean Penn. In just the first couple of days, Penn flaunted France's smoking ban by chain-smoking through a news conference, used a word that rhymes with 'duck' several times, bashed President Bush (although that was pretty much a given) and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama in a slightly backhanded way, warning the candidate that if elected, he needs to do better than his "phenomenally inhuman and unconstitutional" voting record.

The premiere of Dreamworks' animated "Kung Fu Panda" also had some news. The movie is apparently pretty good, but that is nothing compared with the news that the twin girls gestating inside Kung Fu Panda voice-over actress Angelina Jolie are likely going to be fraternal, not identical.

Jolie mentioned that an ultrasound revealed differences in the fetuses already were showing differences. What this means: We the public get double the results of the undoubtedly-going-to-be-excellent-looking-in-20-years Pitt-Jolie genetic roulette, so that's good. Unless you're one of those creepsters who's really into the Olsen twins and wishes they would stop dying their hair different colors.

Also at Cannes: singer Lily Allen was caught by paparazzi doing some topless sunbathing. She seemed quite composed despite the intrusion, grinning sheepishly in the photos and joking about it with photogs the next day.

Inanity now!

Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson, despite a recent spate of engagement rumors started by a prop ring Hudson wore on the set of her upcoming movie "Bride Wars," are done. Really, this time . . . the trial of R. Kelly continues like a Bataan Death March of child pornography. Yesterday the jury was finalized . . . *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.