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"The judges simply decided that they personally favored gay marriage, perverted the actual meaning of the state constitution, and then imposed their belief on the people of Massachusetts for no better reason than an arrogant confidence that they could get away with it."

Well, I haven't read the decision in full, so I'll take your word for it that that is exactly how the decision reads. [grin]

"A better analogy to the Massachusetts gay marriage decision would be one in which the justices personally believe that handguns are dangerous, so they order the legislature to ban them despite having no constitutional authority to do so. They then announce that if the legislature fails to comply, they'll start ordering local police to confiscate people's guns without legislative authority."

But this case didn't happen in a vacuum; the judges didn't wake up one morning and say, "Hey, let's change the marriage laws!" As I understand it: a case was brought, the decision was that the current situation was unconstitutional. In fact, the judges _did_ turn the question over to the legislature, telling them, "please bring the law in line with the constitution." The current ruling is on the proposed law, which is still not in line with the constitution of Massachusetts.

#####But this case didn't happen in a vacuum; the judges didn't wake up one morning and say, "Hey, let's change the marriage laws!" As I understand it: a case was brought, the decision was that the current situation was unconstitutional. In fact, the judges _did_ turn the question over to the legislature, telling them, "please bring the law in line with the constitution." The current ruling is on the proposed law, which is still not in line with the constitution of Massachusetts.#####

The case was brought in Massachusetts because the gay activists knew the court there was politically-driven enough to order gay marriage.

Do you seriously wish to maintain that the Massachusetts constitution has **EVER** been amended to require the legislature to sanction gay marriage? If so, when was that provision ratified, and why were those who ratified it unaware of it at the time?

Actual constitutional provisions must be ratified. For example, the 19th amendment prohibits states from denying the vote based on sex. That issue was debated forcefully, and after a pitched political battle that lasted decades, the amendment in question was approved by the requisite super-majorities in Congress and the states.

There appears to be no record of a "right to gay marriage" amendment being added to the Massachusetts state constitution. Surely such a thing would have been controversial, and would have engendered enormously heated debate on its way to ratification. Yet, there's no record of that happening.

What we have is an activist court with four judges who personally favor gay marriage, and who twisted some vague and or non-existent passages in the state constitution to mean something they were never intended to mean. A multi-thousand year old institution such as marriage should not be altered by a minority of four on the basis of such arrogance.