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.

[knak]

welcome to FR

[Dalan]

"welcome to FR"

Thanks! After reading the Boston Globe's online comment forum about this topic - full of gushing praise over the wisdom of the majestic Judges - I had to come here to try to wash away the taint.

[templar]

Now would be a good time to expand the legislative power to override court decisions and allow judges to be more easily removed for abuse of office--...

Maybe the legislature could just sort of defund the court on the next appropriations bill?

[andy58-in-nh]

Sounds like the nation is moving forward. A victory for human rights...

Forward, right.... straight to Hell. Marriage - betwen a man and a woman - is not a form of oppression. It is a fundamental precondition for an orderly society, and the basis for all other social insitutions - churches & synagogues, neighborhoods & communities, businesses & organizations. Marriage, in addition to providing for the propagation of the species, serves to impose obligations upon rights and duties upon liberty, and that is what properly regulates a free society, and inhibits bad and destructive behaviors.

[BlackElk]

My uncle contracted tuberculosis in World War II while in the Army. He was quarantined at (I believe) Fort Devens, Massachusetts, for a year or two after the war until he was without symptoms and certainly not going to transmit TB to others. He never complained even once and is still alive at 85. I asked him, when I was a kid, why he wasn't outraged. He answered that quarantining him was common sense.

I am not beating up on you, much less for your understandable sympathy for a friend, innocent of misbehavior. I have acquaintances who are hemophiliac but not HIV positive. Hemophiliacs also need protection from the libertinian lavenders (who might donate blood) who don't really care who dies so long as they get their kicks.

Quarantine is not punishment. It is medical and public health prudence. We can separate hemophiliacs from others but let us not allow the exceptions to swallow the rule. Bill Buckley once advocated tattoos in the intimate areas of the HIV positive as a clear warning to the uninfected lavenders or others.

[Aquinasfan]

If two consenting adults want to do something in their bedroom...and they are not hurting anyone...

How do you know that?

Sodomy is an evil. We can know this with certainty through unaided reason since it is an unnatural act. It is an especially evil unnatural act since it is an abuse of one of man's greatest powers, the power to procreate.

Therefore, those who participate in the act harm themselves. Since they are also members of society, they harm society, just as a single broken egg damages a dozen eggs.

The question arises as to whether all vices should be criminalized. One consideration regarding the criminalization of a vice is whether the suppression of the vice results in greater vice (i.e., the corruption of law enforcement). Another consideration is the gravity of the crime. This consideration can overide the former.

Such is certainly the case regarding sodomy. This crime strikes at the heart of society, since without procreation society itself ceases to exist.

[knak]

here's is an interesting link for you or anyone else:

Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues

[concerned about politics]

Thanks! After reading the Boston Globe's online comment forum about this topic

Every homosexual dysfunctional will now be movng to Massichutsets. They'll be in your school locker rooms, day care centers, YMCA's, baseball games and everwhere your children congrigate. All carryng pamphlets from NAMBLA on how to molest young boys without getting caught (The pamphlets were also called "constitutional" by liberal judges).
Brace yourselves.

[js1138]

I'm a little curious about how this new law will be worded. I mean gays are3 not the only people currently forbidden to marry. How can you write a marriage law that prohibits discrimination without allowing marriage between siblings -- don't laugh, marriage is a legal contract that would confer great benefits in inheritance of large estates. How about marriage between 50-year-olds and nine-year-olds. In my state marriage at any age confers adult status. This would also have implications in the realm of inheritance and ownership.

[Lunatic Fringe]

I guarantee the Defense of Marriage Act will be overturned. It is blatantly unconstitutional. State's MUST recognize the civil decisions and rulings of all states.

I'm afraid the only way around this is by a constitutional amendment, and even then that will limit the scope of the refusal to recognize same-sex marriage to a federal level only.

[only1percent]

Indeed, the SJC doesn't have the ability to order the legislature to adopt legislation. The way that courts impose their view of whats unconstitutional is to issue specific orders to executive branch officials and private citizens to act in a specific way NOTWITHSTANDING the legislation. If the executive branch official doesn't comply, then he gets sent to jail for contempt. The decisions adopted today and last year basically say that if the legislature doesn't adopt suitable legislation, THEN the SJC will start issuing mandates to officials to ignore the legislatures.

The orders will be simple: the vital statistics people will be ordered to issue marriage licenses and to record marriage certificates, judges will be ordered to solemnized gay marriages, tax officials will be ordered to modify the income tax return forms and to give all marriage rights to gay married couples, hospitals and landlords and lenders (etc.) will have to extend all statutory rights of marriage to gay married couples.

The legislature has three avenues to pursue. The legislature can pursue a corrective amendment to the State Constitution (this takes time). It can vote to remove the majority of the SJC, but the Governor and Governor's council would have to concurand have them replaced with judges who will overturn the decision. (Don't know if this is underway.) It can revoke the institution of marriage (the SJC didn't hold that gays must be able to marry, it held that gays must have the same marriage rights as non-gays, meaning that if straights have none, then gays need have none.)

Why is the Massachusetts General Assembly even considering this? I haven't read the Mass. Constitution, but I have an awfully hard time believing that it gives the Judicial Court the power to order legislation to be passed. The GA should just say, "Thanks for your opinion," and go its merry way.

[McGavin999]

That's called anarchy. If the legislators feel they cannot, in good conscience, follow the court order, they should resign.

No, it is not anarchy. It is not the job of the courts to demand legislation. Their job is to interpret the laws and not to demand that the laws be changed.

The one tool the legislature has is the impeachment laws. They can move to remove judges who have abused their position and re-name judges who will do what they are supposed to do.

[andy58-in-nh]

But it is clear now that legal protections and civil rights is not what this is about at all. It's about altering the very definition of our culture and society, to suit the whims of a radical, tiny minority.

Exactly right, and an example of why I chose to remove my family from Massachusetts eight years ago.

[andy58-in-nh]

But it is clear now that legal protections and civil rights is not what this is about at all. It's about altering the very definition of our culture and society, to suit the whims of a radical, tiny minority.

Exactly right, and an example of why I chose to remove my family from Massachusetts eight years ago.

[BlackElk]

Who died and left the courts God? John Marshall????

If the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cannot read the Massachusetts constitution as written and wants to invent "constitutional rights" for lavender canoodlers out of whole cloth, then the offending justices who have violated their oaths and not the legislators ought to resign.

[presidio9]

Quarantine is not punishment. It is medical and public health prudence.

Tuberculosis and HIV differ in their symptoms and their transmission. Quarantine would not have as much of an effect on the AIDs virus.

[Modernman]

Most of the state legislature is either supportive or silent about it. The majority is opposed to a state Constitutional amendment protecting marriage.

Federalism at work, it seems. From what you're telling us, the people of Massachusetts and the legislature seem to have no problem with this decision.

Where does that leave us, I wonder?

[azhenfud]

"thanks,,wonder why so many southerners have aids."

Let me take a shot at this one: because we have an open Southern border through which medically unscreened and/or untreated hundreds of thousands march through bringing drug habits and unsafe sexual practices with them? Close enough?

[jimt]

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

You are right and I appreciate the correction.

Regards,

jimt

[Kahonek]

"that still doesn't give the court the right to write their own laws."

The court made a ruling. They delayed the implementation of that ruling to give the legislature time to "take any action they might deem necessary." They didn't tell the legislature what to do. Marriage will happen with or without any legislative action.