But to be nice, here: The Mitt Romney Deception
And here: How Gov. Mitt Romney started same-sex “marriage” in Massachusetts - despite what he says now!
MassResistance used selective quotations of the opinion to come to the wrong conclusion. Sorry. They seem to have a profound misunderstanding of the law, which I think is deliberate because they seem smart enough to know better.
Assuming you’ve read their argument, here is a BRIEF explanation of it’s failings. The court did not VACATE the existing law, because that would mean nobody could get married. Throwing out a law is considered a very severe response.
They also couldn’t simply say the law allowed same-sex marriage. The words did not permit it.
However, they decided the words “men and woman” were common-law terms, and not an explicit statement in the law about the sex of the two participants. Then they argued that common law changes over time, and that the common law definition of marriage now included same sex couples.
Consequently, they ruled that the Mass. Marriage law, which they said depended on the “common law” definition of marriage, now embraced their new version of that, which is “person” and “person”.
They didn’t have to re-write the law, they just changed the meaning of “man and woman”.
They didn’t give the legislature 180 days to implement their ruling, they actually gave specific instructions on how their ruling was to be implemented, including granting relief to the plaintiffs, AND to others similarly situated (relief in this case meaning gay marriage).
They then STAYED their ruling for 180 days to give the legislature time to change the law to make it clear whether the legislature wanted same-sex marriage or not.
Anybody who thinks for a second about the “stay” would realise MassResistance is being stupid. If the court had NOT ordered any change in the law, there would be nothing to “stay”. If the legislature had no need to act in 180 days, and if the end of the 180 day stay was meaningless, there would be no point in having a 180 day period.
The entire concept of a 180-day stay of a ruling would be meaningless if you accepted the MassResistance opinion. Since courts don’t make meaningless judgments, it is clear that the MassResistance opinion is in fact meaningless.