"the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one's choice"
And while many in this forum argue that there is no "right to marry", I think that the Courts will agree with the Massachusetts Court when it said that "the right to marry is not a privilege conferred by the State, but a fundamental right that is protected against unwarranted State interference."
So where does that leave those who want to stop this from happening?
Set standards for each individual State, and stand on the Constitutional argument that defining marriage is a State power as defined by the US Constitution.
Any combination of people are free to make commitments to one another. It is a different matter what licenses are given out by government and what are the legal incidences of those licenses.
It would be the height of absurdity to say the people through legislation have no control over who is eligible for marriage licenses. Since it is the government giving out the licenses, the government must define how they can be obtained. We need not legislate anything about the love or sex shared by the licensees. Since there is no point in regulating combinations of individuals who do not procreate, the government properly defines the eligibility of marriage licenses to include the combination that consists of one man and one woman. That is not to say marrieds must intend to procreate in order to obtain a license. Just that they must be one man and one woman, which is the logical and traditional combination.
Again, the love and passion that one man may feel for another man is none of the government's business. Since the government is not interfering in their love or commitments, the only purpose these two men have for obtaining a license is to legalize their commitment and to obtain society's approval for their coupling. While I sympathize with their desire, it is an insufficient reason to change the legal definition.
Reminds me of something I read last night, while doing a bit of research on the aforementioned Griswold vs. Connecticut case, the Court said that rights concerning marriage were fundamantal human rights that predated the Bill of Rights, and could not be eliminated by them. Some tortured legal reasoning, perhaps, but they make up nearly forty year old precident that will no doubt be cited.
So where does that leave those who want to stop this from happening?
Set standards for each individual State, and stand on the Constitutional argument that defining marriage is a State power as defined by the US Constitution.
It would appear that even the option of firewalling this to MA with civil union is dead. If the MA legislature had rushed to present a civil union plan as accomplished fact before going to the MA court, they might have peeled one judge away from the majority.