How in the Sam Hill can a Massachusetts judge issue a binding opinion on Rhode Island law?
Doesn't a Rhode Island judge have to do the interpretation as to whether homosexual marriage is allowed in Rhode Island?
Does anybody else see how this case is absurd? Or is this ok because anything is allowed if you are seeking a politically correct outcome?
He can't change RI law. What he's saying is that *he* interprets the RI law to mean that marriage is not restricted to one man and one woman. That means that the MA law saying that a marriage is not recognized in Massachusetts if it's not recognized in another state, is not valid.
So it sounds like either (a) they can "claim" they get married in RI and MA will recognize it, or (b) they can just get married in MA and MA will recognize it. Either way, it's not a legal Rhode Island marriage...yet.
What this does, however, is give the activists a hammer to use on the Rhode Island judiciary. They can now go back there and say, "look, we married in Massachusetts and it's legal there, so therefore you must extend full faith and credit to us and recognize our marriage here in Rhode Island."
I've never been entirely comfortable with a Constitutional amendment about marriage. It seems so bloody OBVIOUS that marriage is one man and one woman, that it isn't the sort of thing that needs to be defined in a state or the Federal constitution. But uncontrolled judicial activism like this is leaving us no choice. The amendment process seems to be the only way to put some fetters on these radicals, because our legislators don't show the spines or the cojones to stop them any other way.
}:-)4