Massachusetts High Court to Rule on Same-Sex Marriage( potential to be revolutionary)

boston.com ^ | July 9, 2003 | boston.com

[youknow]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts will rule shortly on whether the state should grant marriage licences to seven same-sex couples.

Court rulings in Ontario and British Columbia have lent momentum to the push for homosexual marriage, but in the U.S., 37 states and the federal government have passed legislation in defence of marriage.

[TheAngryClam]

Does it really offend you? Do want a law that reads like a legal brief? A tome of 900 pages?

Being a law student, actually, yes I would. And, like I said, someone with a hysterectomy physically does NOT have the potential to bear children, so your definition would exclude them.

And quite honestly, I don't care one way or another about gay marriage, only that it should be done legislatively, not judicially.

[elbucko]

So by your logic, my wife and I could not get married three years ago, since we were both sterilized.

NO!

As a male and as a female, regardless of age or medical condition, would you and you wife ever have had the potential to create offspring. Yes. What's the problem?

Do Lesbians? No! Does Bruce and Lance? No! What's the problem with a simple, natural rule to base a law upon without all your personal soap opera's. Huh?

[elbucko]

And, like I said, someone with a hysterectomy physically does NOT have the potential to bear children,

But at one time in their life, it may be reasonably assumed that they did have the potential to bear children. The homosexual couple, on the other hand, never did have the natural potential to make offspring.

I agree, whether there is gay marriage or not neither breaks my leg nor robs my purse. But poorly written law does rob my purse.

[Dimensio]

Actually, my problem is that you're arguing that marriage laws should be written to make procreation the stated goal of marriage, but not insisting that procreation actually occur. It makes me wonder why you would harp on about procreation when you don't actually care if any procreation really happens within the marraige -- you just want one of them to be male and one of them to be female, but for some reason you throw up reproduction as a smokescreen to hide that.

[TheAngryClam]

Which is my concern about such ill-written statutes.

It'd be much easier, and less dancing around the issue, to simply say "Marriage is between one man and one woman," than to muddy the waters with talk of fertility and so forth.

Besides, technology might eventually catch up.

[grania]

I'm not comfortable with gay marriage, although I do know of people who are in same-sex relationships and they are happy with their lives, and I won't begrudge anyone happiness in a world in which so many people have none. I find it ironic that gays want to get married legally when many people who have personal assets built up would rather avoid the legal implications of marriage.

A few issues (for which I have sympathy for gays):

Alice-in-Wonderland logic. Since gays are allowed to adopt children, for all practical reasons, they are as much their children as if a heterosexual couple adopted. If they can adopt, the children deserve the protection of marriage...being the responsibility equally of both people, in case something happens to one of them, visitation rights if the couple breaks up, legal rights.

I know people who aren't gay who, as they get older, could see protection of their well-being in a legal union with a close friend. It would take precedence over relatives taking over their affairs if something happened to them.

Benefits from jobs that go to families depend on marriage, don't they?

I'm still not entirely comfortable with this concept; but, where children are involved, I want what's best for them. And PS: a lot of these adoptions are children nobody else would take, and if I have to choose between Massachusetts raising those children, and someone else doing it, I'll go with having people who care raising the child (or in some cases families of children so they won't be separated). The state saves money (how's that for a concept in MA) and the influence can't be worse than that provided than the nutcases who run social services.

The arguments about what a marriage should mean? I think the arguments there should be directed to churches that have these weddings. And, honestly, if it's not a church I belong to, it's not my business.

[elbucko]

I wish I could respond to your post with something complimentary, but I can't.

[elbucko]

Benefits from jobs that go to families depend on marriage, don't they?

Yes. That is one of the reasons Gays want the recognition of marriage, as well as your aforementioned adoption. As far as adoption goes, it should be a case by case basis for gay, as it is for straight and the benefit of the child paramount in the consideration.

Look, I don't care if elephants marry giraffes, the point raised by the article was speculation about court defined rules of gay marriage (which some wise soul concludes should be done by legislature, except there is no legislature that has the political courage to draft a fair law).

Posting on this thread has given me arduous insight into why it took ten years for the US Constitution to be ratified.

[kkindt]

No. Sexual relations does not equate to sexual intercourse and my point is made quite well by Clinton. He tried to use the term 'sexual relations' in a narrower sense that is given to it in the dictionary. Sexual has to do with any kind of sexual contact between two persons. Relations has to do with any kind of contact between two persons. Sexual intercourse is one type of sexual relations. So Clinton tried to kill the words "sexual relations" by making them narrower rather than broader than they ought to be and have been used.