Sen. John McCain stuck to his guns opposing gay marriage Wednesday with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who said she will marry her girlfriend Portia de Rossi following a recent California Supreme Court decision that makes the union possible.

The show is slated to be broadcast Thursday.

"We are all the same people, all of us. You're no different than I am. Our love is the same," she said as she sparred with the Republican presidential hopeful. "When someone says, 'You can have a contract, and you'll still have insurance, and you'll get all that,' it sounds to me like saying, 'Well, you can sit there, you just can't sit there.'

McCain said he heard her "articulate that position in a very eloquent fashion. We just have a disagreement. And I, along with many, many others, wish you every happiness." But he added he believes in "the unique status of marriage between and man and a woman."

He said he supported legislation saying that same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into legal agreements for insurance and other purposes, he added.

All three major party candidates remaining in the race for the White House have said they believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. All three oppose a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. All three want to see states decide the issue: That’s what happened in California in Thursday when the state’s Republican-dominated Supreme Court ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

The California high court's 4-3 ruling cited a 1948 California Supreme Court decision that overturned a ban on interracial marriages.

McCain supported the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of gay marriage and domestic partnerships. Both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have called the law discriminatory and want to see it repealed.