Rather, they found that the state was acting against the constitution and gave it six months to bring legislation in line with the constitution, else the constitution would stand. The court is not obligation to stall implimenting a decision until such time as the constitution would be changed. That’d be a remarkably silly way to run the government and enforce the constitutions.
All of this is As I Remember and some of it may be redundant, but…
Firstly, at the time the court made their ruling, no amendment was in the works to place a ban in the constitution itself. Thus, why would the courts offer a hypothetical opportunity for an item that no one at the time had even brought before the legislature?
Secondly, once the constitutional amendment was approved by the legislature for its first go-round, the state Attorney General refused to go before the court and ask for an extension on the ruling. A court can only act when asked to and no one was willing or able to do so. In no way can that be blamed on the SJC. The AG didn’t want the case and the legislature torpedoed a special commission, both well within their respective rights even if you might disagree with their decisions.
Just to clarify, the proposed amendment does *not * “ban gay marriage”. It establishes civil unions with exactly the same legal status except for the name. The only thing that the next legislature, and then the people, would have to approve is the denial of the infamous M-word to same-sex couples. That would overrule the SJC’s advisory opinion that “separate is not equal”. NB, amendments are supposed to be difficult, so that only serious ones get adopted.
Even so, it was plainly a tortuous compromise measure, with the equal-rights advocates allowing the contrary-to-nature side a political cover that they could vote for while still “protecting marriage”, while still not taking a serious risk that it might get enacted. That passed very narrowly, and, with the trend plainly being toward acceptance, that’s the end of the line. After a few years of gay married couples just living happily together, I agree that there’s very little chance that a majority of the MA electorate would decide that taking away the word “marriage” from what they have would be anything more than spite.
And we’re not a spiteful people, despite the sad actions Romney has been trying to harass out-of-staters, or threaten to, or foot-drag one-day JP appointments for gay couples’ preferred officiants. I can’t believe he’s as petty as he’s been showing, and I suspect Rove is putting him up to it somehow.
As to the OP, I tend to agree that anti-SSM groups are badly weakened by the new reality. That’s largely how social advances have happened, ISTM - a slowly-growing sentiment below most public notice, then a few incidents that force the issue despite majority opposition, then some actual thought by the opposers helped along by a few consciousness-raising incidents, the fairly-sudden realization that this is right, and sudden collapse of opposition except for a few diehards. Just as quickly as legal segregation went from the norm to being seen as evil with the help of a few high-profile incidents, so will same-sex marriage. The catalyzing event in the shift may not be abrupt, like the photo of the little black girl in her clean new dress going off to school in Little Rock with an armed guard around her, rather it may be just a lot of cases of local recognition that the two nice old ladies down the street are just as normal now that they wear rings. But it will happen.
I don’t know if it’s as straightforward as “well, it’s legal, those groups are doomed,” but I do think this is becoming more real. So as a result, your Average Person[sup]TM[/sup] will see that nobody’s being hurt and most people’s aversion to deny someone else their happiness will become more of a factor.
I’m not sure I follow, ElvisL1ves. Can you elaborate?
Right now, by virtue of the decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, gay couples can marry.
If the proposed state constitutional amendment goes ahead, gay couples would not be able to marry. The proposed amendment makes clear that civil unions for gays will not the same as a marriage for opposite-sex couples:
So, in what way does the amendment not ban gay marriage?
It would ban only the name, not the substance. The amendment does 2 things: It deprives same-sex couples of use of the word “marriage” to define their relationship, and it establishes one called “civil union” with exactly the same legal standing. The name matters, sure, but the rights of marriage in terms of probate law, insurance, etc. are at the heart of it - and that legal status now exists without challenge or even potential challenge on the state level. Amid all the remaining muddles, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the battle has already been won and only mop-up actions remain.
An amendment to “ban gay marriage” would also disallow civil unions or any other separate-but-equal legal institution, and that is what several states have already done or are working on.
Well, for some, the name is part of the substance. Personally, when I say I’m married, I’m not thinking of various legal rights and obligations; I’m stating the nature of my personal relationship with the Beloved.
The Goodridges right now can say they’re married. If the amendment goes through, a same-sex couple would not be able to say that, even if they have all the legal incidents.