This is where the FMA is:
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Posted on 11/18/2003 1:13:39 PM PST by yonif
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Massachusetts's highest court Tuesday ruled 4-3 that the state cannot ban "same-sex" civil marriages and gave the state Legislature 180 days to change state law.
The ruling by the state's Supreme Judicial Court was made strictly under the Massachusetts Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and did not refer to the U.S. Constitution or to the precedents of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Barring a state constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling, Massachusetts would become the first state to recognize homosexual civil marriage. Vermont recognizes same-sex civil unions, though it does not recognize same-sex marriages. Similar court cases are developing in other states but the Massachusetts case is the first to reach such a dramatic decision.
Civil marriages potentially could be recognized by other states or on a national level, while civil unions are only recognized by the state in which they are conducted, Glennda Testone, director of regional media for Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, told United Press International.
"Marriage is a vital social institution," the court majority said, providing a number of "legal, financial, and social benefits ... The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens."
The majority said it gave "full deference to the arguments made by the Commonwealth. But it has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples."
The majority also said the state allows gay and lesbian couples to adopt children but failed to allow them to create the most stable environment for those children.
The State Department of Public Health, which opposed gay marriage on behalf of the state, "has had more than ample opportunity to articulate a constitutionally adequate justification for limiting civil marriage to opposite-sex unions. It has failed to do so. The department has offered purported justifications for the civil marriage restriction that are starkly at odds with the comprehensive network of vigorous, gender-neutral laws promoting stable families and the best interests of children. It has failed to identify any relevant characteristic that would justify shutting the door to civil marriage to a person who wishes to marry someone of the same sex."
The ban against same-sex marriage "works a deep and scarring hardship on a very real segment of the community for no rational reason," the narrow majority said. "The absence of any reasonable relationship between, on the one hand, an absolute disqualification of same-sex couples who wish to enter into civil marriage and, on the other, protection of public health, safety, or general welfare, suggests that the marriage restriction is rooted in persistent prejudices against persons who are (or who are believed to be) homosexual."
The state ban on same-sex marriage was challenged in 2001 by 14 people from five counties. They included Gloria Bailey, then 60, and Linda Davies, then 55, who "had been in a committed relationship for 30 years," and Maureen Brodoff, then 49, and Ellen Wade, then 52, who "had been in a committed relationship for 20 years and lived with their 12-year-old daughter," the majority said.
" ... The plaintiffs include business executives, lawyers, an investment banker, educators, therapists, and a computer engineer," the majority said. "Many are active in church, community, and school groups."
But one dissent, joined by the three judges in the minority, saw the case differently.
"What is at stake in this case is not the unequal treatment of individuals or whether individual rights have been impermissibly burdened," the dissent said, "but the power of the Legislature to effectuate social change without interference from the courts ... The power to regulate marriage lies with the Legislature, not with the judiciary ... Today, the court has transformed its role as protector of individual rights into the role of creator of rights."
A separate dissent said the individual judges may view same-sex marriages as favorable to raising children.
"It is not, however, our assessment that matters," the dissent said. "Conspicuously absent from the court's opinion today is any acknowledgment that the attempts at scientific study of the ramifications of raising children in same-sex couple households are themselves in their infancy and have so far produced inconclusive and conflicting results ... Our belief that children raised by same-sex couples should fare the same as children raised in traditional families is just that: a passionately held but utterly untested belief. The Legislature is not required to share that belief but may, as the creator of the institution of civil marriage, wish to see the proof before making a fundamental alteration to that institution."
The Massachusetts marriage law has not been changed for a long time.
(Until today)
This is where the FMA is:
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| Malachi 4: 1 - 6 - Study This Chapter |
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Sad day bump...
Oh Goodie! Now we can have Mr. & Mr. Barney Franks.
JESUS DEFINES MARRIAGE: "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." -from THE BIBLE: Matthew 19:4-6
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If you read this correctly, marriage is a model of the same relationship Jesus has with the Church, as well as the way to conduct yourself in marriage.
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