Mass. High Court Grants 'Marriage' Benefits to Singles

ScrappleFace ^ | 2-4-2004

[Sandy]

(2004-02-04) -- Starting May 18, single people in Massachusetts can be granted a marriage license allowing them to enjoy all of the legal and social benefits that come with the term "married," even though they remain alone.

The ruling by the state's Supreme Judicial Court comes on the same day the court declared, by a 4-3 vote, that a new law granting monogamous homosexual couples identical rights to monogamous heterosexual couples must refer to the arrangement as "marriage" rather than a civil "union."

The majority ruled that any wording which differentiates among people creates a "second class" of citizens who would be seen as inferior. Since "marriage" is the traditional, and favored, term, anything less represents "invidious discrimination" forbidden under the state constitution.

The court had decided that homosexuals would be denied not only legal protections, but would be "excluded from the full range of human experience" if they were granted anything less than full marriage benefits under a law that explicitly calls their union "marriage." In the follow-up ruling it applied the same logic to singles and groups of people of any number.

While the court previously defined marriage as "the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of others," today it amended the definition.

The new definition of marriage in Massachusetts reads as follows: "a package of legal and tax benefits and restrictions, regarding procreation, child rearing and conservation of resources, granted to one or more persons who purchase a license from the state."

However, the American Civil Liberties Union has already filed a suit challenging the term "persons" as potentially discriminatory toward other species.

"We are so close now to achieving a 21st-century version of Martin Luther King's vision for America," said an unnamed ACLU spokesman. "We are speeding up that day when all people -- homosexuals and heterosexuals...singles, couples and small groups...sentient beings and non-sentient beings -- can join hands, paws or flippers in civil matrimony and sing in the words of that old African-American spiritual 'Free at last...Free at last. Thank our lucky stars we are free at last'."

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - How can a court "grant" anything to anyone? This is bizarre!

[DJtex]

Why post this B.S. mixed in with serious articles. I find these sophmoric satire pieces a total pain. If you can put a "Barf Alert" on Liberal pieces, please put "Humor" on such pieces, although most of this crap is hardly humorous.

[goldstategop]

LOL! Liberals are dead on hilarious when when they sound serious. They're a national joke.

[hotpotato]

May not be that far from reality. Just wait until crossdressers want to marry their opposite-gendered self.

[Sneer]

As the high court is usurping the legislature's right to make law the legislature should now ban all marriages in the state until they are able to have a constitutional amendment passed. People wanting to get married can cross state lines until the amendment is passed.

[Sandy]

If you can put a "Barf Alert" on Liberal pieces, please put "Humor" on such pieces

Barf Alerts are for dummies; I don't use them. Anyway, the title of this article makes the satire obvious enough that a Humor Alert would be pretty redundant for anyone but the dense.

[RLK]

Do to people involved need to practice monogamy or can everyone in the state be married to everybody else and receive benefits simultaneously under the new political correct multiculturalism?

[BenLurkin]

Heeee-aaaarrrrhhh

[capt. norm]

Why stop where they did? Why not allow group marriages between three or more people?

Once you open that door, you'd better be ready for everything that comes out.

[DMZFrank]

When oh when will some elected executive officer in some state or federal capacity, in fulfilling his constitutional duty to honestly interpet the constitution (federal or state) just disregard the unconstitutional rulings of any court and dare the legislature to impeach him for it? When will some legislature impeach just ONE judge for an unconstitutional ruling?

To say that the courts have the final word on the constitutionality of a law NO MATTER WHAT THEY RULE is to say that the system of checks and balances envisioned by the founders does not exist any more.

Massachuttsetts does not have the right to redefine marriage for 49 other states.