Mass. High Court Rules for Gay Marriage

Associated Press Writer ^ | Wed, Feb 04, 2004 | JENNIFER PETER

[presidio9]

BOSTON - The Massachusetts high court ruled Tuesday that only full, equal marriage rights for gay couples — rather than civil unions — would meet the edict of its November decision, erasing any doubts that the nation's first same-sex marriages would take place in the state beginning in mid-May.

AP Photo Slideshow: Same-Sex Marriage Issues

The court issued the opinion in response to a request from the state Senate about whether Vermont-style civil unions, which conveyed the benefits — but not the title of marriage — would meet constitutional muster.

The much-anticipated opinion sets the stage for next Wednesday's Constitutional Convention, where the Legislature will consider an amendment that would legally define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Without the opinion, Senate President Robert Travaglini had said the vote would be delayed.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, and gave the Legislature six months to change state laws to make it happen.

But almost immediately, the vague wording of the ruling left lawmakers — and advocates on both side of the issue — uncertain if Vermont-style civil unions would satisfy the court's decision.

The state Senate asked for more guidance from the court and sought the advisory opinion, which was made public Wednesday morning when it was read into the Senate record.

[presidio9]

If two consenting adults want to do something in their bedroom...and they are not hurting anyone...I don't think we need a law saying that should or should not do - whatever it is they are doing.

Note to ignorant poster. Sodomy is no longer illegal. We've moved on to gay marriage. Please try to keep up, won't you? Thanks so much!

[Jim Noble]

I believe the current statistics show that the greatest number of new cases of these diseases are among straight people.

But you're wrong

In 2002, there were 31,089 incident AIDS cases, and 4,937 of them arose from heterosexual transmission.

That's 15%.

[cajungirl]

The 10% gay figure is politically derived. And don't be patronizing to me. Your stats are a lie and you know it. You quote these fantasy stats to support an argument that the gay lobby has been using quite successfully for years. And using that argument to treat 7 year olds in schools to finding out out to put condoms on bananas and such. The agenda is to put out the lie that we are all at risk for this disease so it will be funded to the extreme, even moreso than for the more widespread public health problems like cancer and heart disease. It is to give the gay lobby a massive amount of money, legitimacy and ppolitical power to make our culture not just willing to let people live and let live but to embrace their more radical elements.

[TSgt]

"Just because you don't believe in this doesn't mean you have the rigth to tell someone else what to do or how to live."

Exactly! We should allow all perverts to be legally recognized!

Pedophiles shouldn't be told how to live...its their choice! We should recognize pedophilia next as a "lifestyle" just like the APA does.

From: http://www.sexcriminals.com/news-archive/info-16252.html

Professional organizations are trying to catch up in the race to normalize what we once called "depravity." The American Psychiatric Association (APA), which declared homosexual practice normal, has recently entertained the notion of similarly downgrading pedophilia.

The APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) once contended that merely "acting upon" one's urges toward children was enough to generate a diagnosis of pedophilia. But in the revised DSM, a person who molests a child is considered psychiatrically sick only if his actions "caused clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning."

That seems to mean that if the molester is OK with it and the child doesn't complain, it's healthy. It can't be wrong if it feels so right, right?

Where do you draw the line?

[jwalsh07]

Table 1: Known routes of HIV infections – U.S. men (June 1999 – June 2000 a)
HIV Infection route	White	African-American	Hispanic	Asian	Am. Indian
Via homosexual contact	86.5%	54.5%	71.2%	90.8%	74.4%
Via drug injection only	9.5%	20%	18.2%	4.6%	15.9%
Via heterosexual contact	4.1%	25.5%	10.6%	4.6%	9.8%
% Recently infected men	54.2%	30.6%	13.3%	0.9%	1.0%
% American male population b	75.1%	12.3%	12.5%	3.7%	0.9%
Notes: a CDC.  Table 10.  HIV/AIDS Surv Report 2000;12(1) (Data from 34 states with confidential reporting), b Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau (number of men and women assumed to be equal).

[Cicero]

These judges should be recalled or impeached. But I suppose only the citizens of Massachusetts can do that, and they are the people who have repeatedly voted for Teddy Kennedy and Barney Frank. Even after Kennedy publicly murdered his girlfriend by leaving her to drown when a word from him could have saved her. And even after Barney Frank ran a male prostitution ring out of his Washington offices.

If any of these justices are Catholic, they should also be publicly excommunicated. But I won't hold my breath.

[presidio9]

I believe the current statistics show that the greatest number of new cases of these diseases are among straight people.

Dear God, I should certainly hope so! Gay men make up 1.5% of our population. It would be statistically impossible for them to make up the majority of all new AIDs cases. Especially since so many are infected already.

Average life expectancy of a gay man in the US: 42.

Sorry...nice try though

Don't make any more attempts at sarcasm. You have yet to master the concept.

[cajungirl]

thank you so much. And considering that the straight population is about 95 % of the general pop, oh heck, make it 90% to keep this jerk happy, we see where the problem is. And I want to know how much funding this entirely preventable disease is getting compared to the funding for cancer or heart disease or diabetes. Per death. My guess is aids is vastly overfunded.

[maeng]

Nice try, but the LATEST statistics show the fastest spreading AIDS epidemic is in the Gay community....also, partner abuse is rampant among gays.

[presidio9]

If you think there are only 5% of the population that would be considered gay...then you are just not living in reality

Actually, it's less than 3%.

[BlackElk]

Libertinarianism on parade. The rest of us will hide the household pets for their own protection lest the libertinarians take advantage of them while in the neighborhood.

EQUAL RIGHTS?????? Any man and any woman, not already married to a member of the opposite sex, are EQUALLY entitled to marry a member of the OPPOSITE sex. The inherently disordered and perverted desire of one lavender in heat for another carried out by putting things where they do not belong and by nefarious whoring after societal approval of lavender canoodling, is no reason for language abuse. Marriage is an exclusive heterosexual relationship between two people, one male and one female. Government did NOT institute marriage.

If we have reached the point where that is not judicially enforceable, we have reached the point where we need a new constitution and one which will pre-empt the states' respective authorities and laws, in favor of traditional Judaeo-Christian morality, on such questions as to the nature of marriage, and the right to life from the moment of conception to natural death. Would this impose morality? You bet it would and it is about time.

Meanwhile, let's see ballot initiatives on wedge issues designed to intimidate these libertinarian courts once and for all. If they want to overturn referenda and initiatives, let's party. It will ease the task of pulling the malicious and impious fangs of the judiciary in Massachusetts and elsewhere, to say nothing of breaking the impudent back of such courts. If it is necessary to stripmine normal attitudes of normal members of the public early on to prevent the customary societal softening by relentless leftist propaganda, so be it.

Make this the central wedge issue of the 2004 elections and it will be a landmark election returning record numbers of civilized legislators, prepared to enforce morality in this minimal way, and the landslide destruction of Kerry who will spend the entire campaign tripping over his feet defending lavender canoodling to Democrats of modest means who go to church.

[BlackElk]

Libertinarianism on parade. The rest of us will hide the household pets for their own protection lest the libertinarians take advantage of them while in the neighborhood.

EQUAL RIGHTS?????? Any man and any woman, not already married to a member of the opposite sex, are EQUALLY entitled to marry a member of the OPPOSITE sex. The inherently disordered and perverted desire of one lavender in heat for another carried out by putting things where they do not belong and by nefarious whoring after societal approval of lavender canoodling, is no reason for language abuse. Marriage is an exclusive heterosexual relationship between two people, one male and one female. Government did NOT institute marriage.

If we have reached the point where that is not judicially enforceable, we have reached the point where we need a new constitution and one which will pre-empt the states' respective authorities and laws, in favor of traditional Judaeo-Christian morality, on such questions as to the nature of marriage, and the right to life from the moment of conception to natural death. Would this impose morality? You bet it would and it is about time.

Meanwhile, let's see ballot initiatives on wedge issues designed to intimidate these libertinarian courts once and for all. If they want to overturn referenda and initiatives, let's party. It will ease the task of pulling the malicious and impious fangs of the judiciary in Massachusetts and elsewhere, to say nothing of breaking the impudent back of such courts. If it is necessary to stripmine normal attitudes of normal members of the public early on to prevent the customary societal softening by relentless leftist propaganda, so be it.

Make this the central wedge issue of the 2004 elections and it will be a landmark election returning record numbers of civilized legislators, prepared to enforce morality in this minimal way, and the landslide destruction of Kerry who will spend the entire campaign tripping over his feet defending lavender canoodling to Democrats of modest means who go to church.

[oceanview]

Robert Bork has said in an interview that there are 5 votes on the current SCOTUS to toss the federal defense of marriage act, and I believe he is correct. And I do not think a constitutional amendment will make it.

The bottom line: gay marriage will soon be the law of the land everywhere.

and I want to post this disclaimer before someone flames me: IT IS NOT BUSH'S FAULT!

But as with other problems we have, its his to deal with, and given the two realities above, I do not think he is going to be able to really do much about it right now. To be honest, the only way to stop it would be to get some retirements on the court and new appointments who would uphold the DoMA.

To alot of conservative here who are saying they will not vote for Bush because of immigration etc, be advised, if Kerry wins, gay marriage is the law everywhere, FOREVER, because his SCOTUS appointments will see to it.

[Diddle E. Squat]

If you think there are only 5% of the population that would be considered gay...then you are just not living in reality :)

NO, it is you who is ignoring reality. There is more scientific research supporting the lower range (1-5%) than the higher (5-10%+) of those predisposed to homosexuality, and in fact many gay groups have quietly backed off their 10% claim. Now if you want to lump in peer pressure type experimentation in the face of a huge media market campaign on impressionable teens, you might, might reach that 10%. But that doesn't tell us what percent has gay tendencies, it just inflates that number by combining a segment of exhibitionists, those who are easily manipulated/influence, and those who are morally confused.

Of course that last sentence is colored by moral interpretations, but you get my point, and the math still stands. The gay lobby certainly hasn't hesitated in offering widely inflated claims and junk science colored by their views.

[MrLee]

Perversion is still perversion!

[jjm2111]

as they're the cause de jure.

Sorry to be a grammar nanny, but you mean du jour (of the day). De jure, is "by law" I believe.

[Dan from Michigan]

I don't care what adults do in their homes either.

I DO have a major problem with

1. Judicial activist tyrants in black robes.

2. My money paying for benefits.

3. This stuff around the kids.

[COEXERJ145]

Kieri: "Its important to re-elect President Bush for this reason.

Can you IMAGINE the kind of judges Kerry would appoint to the USSC?

Now I'm gonna have nightmares."

presidio9: "Anybody who says that they will not vote for President Bush's reelection needs to think long and hard about what our country will look like if THIS happens. Under the Senators from Mass and NY, not only will gay marriage be legalized, but gay couples will be given privelidged status."

Thankfully some people get it. More than anything, keeping more left wing wackos off the courts is the most important reason to reelect Bush.

[kjam22]

If I were running for President from the "Great State of Massachusetts"..... I might not think this was especially good news. I mean it might play well in Massachusetts, but most of the country won't approve of it.

Seems pretty easy to tie a presidential canidate from such a liberal state to these type of liberal rulings.

[KQQL]

Monsieur Jean "Bring It On" Kerry

Measure Number: H.R. 3396 (Defense of Marriage Act) Kerry (D-MA), Nay

"I think there has been an exaggeration," Mr. Kerry said when asked whether President Bush has overstated the threat of terrorism.
SC Dem Debate 01/29/04

Kerry opposed the death penalty until 2002 , voted against military action in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and voted to freeze defense spending.

Bank records would later show that Kerry's Chinese campaign cash came from $300,000 in overseas wire transfers sent to Chung on orders from the chief of Chinese military intelligence, Newsweek reports.
NewsMax 02/02/04

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday said Pope John Paul II ``crossed the line'' by instructing pols to block legalization of gay marriage.
Boston Herald 08/02/03

During the height of the Cold War, Kerry opposed the entire strategic modernization effort proposed by President Reagan — the Peacekeeper, B-1 and B-2 bombers, the Trident submarine and D-5 missile, opposed the non-strategic modernization of the defense budget as well, and the deployment of the INF missiles in Europe.
Washington Times 01/04