[Modernman]

What if the legislature in Mass. does diddly squat on the ruling and essentially ignores them????

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

[Doug Loss]

If the legislators feel they cannot, in good conscience, follow the court order, they should resign.

Since when does the court get to dictate what laws the legislature should pass? This court order is invalid on the face of it and should be completely ignored.

[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.

[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.

[Kahonek]

The legislature doesn't have to follow any court order. The courts interpret and enforce the law. They've just decided to interpret this law differently. They didn't order the legislature to do anything.

[el_texicano]

Actually, I would beg differ on the 'anarchy' view.

The history around the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government tells quite a different story than anarchy. There have been times in past history that the Supreme Court has ruled on an issue and the President (Jackson I seem to remember) just ignored them. In other words, it is a form of checks and balances.

One might dispute that this applies to the state level, but they were all set up more or less after the federal model.

The founders very well understood and intended the judicial branch to be the weakest of the branches.

So, if the governor does not enforce it and the legislature ignores the Mass. Supreme Court, the supremes may as well spit in the wind. And actually this is what should happen in order to reign in judicial activism.

[goldstategop]

Wrong. A legislature writes the laws and a court interprets them. But it is NOT the province of a court to order a legislature to write a law to judges' liking. That is a blatant violation of the separation of powers and if the Massachusetts General Court had the cojones it would impeach the Justices on the Supreme Judicial Court and move to eliminate their funding. The court issued an unconstitutional order; now let's see try to carry it out own its own.