NEWS: Supreme Court Declines Massachussetts Gay Marriage Challenge

POLITICS: Supreme Court Declines Massachusetts Gay Marriage Challenge

The Supreme Court today declined to hear a challenge to gay marriage in Massachusetts. One year after the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that Massachusetts law requires that all persons, regardless of sex, must be afforded the right to marry, the US Supreme Court will not touch the issue. Critics of the decision (offically represented by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers) had appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, on the basis that the SJC had
"violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state."

The argument is that the judges were essentially acting as "activists," without being subject to the choice of voters. They lost in the First Circuit, and have no further avenue for appeals now that the highest court in the country has declined (without comment) to hear their argument. However, there is still a chance that same sex marriage could be outlawed in the only state that legally sanctions it - if the voters decide to pass a constitutional amendment. In order to do so, two sessions of the Massachusetts legislature must pass a version of the amendment, which would then go to voters on the ballot in November of 2006. In March, the legislature did pass a version of an amendment that would outlaw same sex marraige in favor of civil unions. However, despite a great deal of the country's apparent fear of same-sex marriage and adherence to "morals" in the recent Presidential election, more than 3000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts since May. And guess what? The sky hasn't fallen, existing marriages haven't been diminished, children haven't been damaged, and life functions as usual. Imagine that.

sweet, go massachussetts

Trying to use the guarantee clause? I don't want to hear any more conservative bitching about "frivolous lawsuits"...

They're complaining that if Mass. recognizes gay marriage that it would undermine local state sovereignty of other states by forcing them to recognize a marriage that in their eyes could be illegal.

My (limited) understanding is that the defense of marriage act, which passed in the late 90's, already prohibits this from happening. Which means that this is and always has been a complete non-issue. I'm not sure why Kerry didn't bring that up during the election process as it seems like a slam-dunk argument, but then again his campaign did some stupid things.

i love living in boston, and working in cambrdige in liberal heaven!!

Sweet!

Now we just need a gay couple from Oregon to get married in Massachusetts, then go home and have their marriage deemed illegal by the state, then they have an actioanble case that will work it's way through the courts and we can be done with this silly mess.

Right, but the there is Supreme Court doctrine extending back more than a century that the "Repubican form of givernment" clause is a "political question" beyond the scope of judicial review. Moreover, if this decision would "force" other states to recognize SSM, it would because of the full faith and credit clause, so the argument seems to be that the Constitution is unconstitutional. Okey-dokey...

I think DOMA would be found to be unconstitutional. It hasn't been challenged yet, because no state had legalized gay marriage, but now a case can actually be brought before the court.

Funny how this has worked out. The SCOTUS refuses to hear a case, virtually guaranteeing that they will hear one in the near term that actually involves a legally married gay couple. I don't think this is coincidence.

PS, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country.

Which has absolutely no bearing on whether gays should have the right to have their relationship recognized by the state.

If you mean b/c same-sex marriages are too recent to be a meaningful part of such a statistic, then I guess I would agree. But I would think divorce rate more generally would be very relevant to the issue of the so-called sanctity of marriage that is so frequently and nebulously cited by opponents of same-sex marriage. I guess it'll be a number of years before we can point to some MA stats and reach the rather unsurprising conclusion that gay couples are no more or less likely to divorce than straight couples.

I definitely think the SC is going to manage its docket in the area pretty carefully--I agree that they're going to avoid addressing DOMA for as long as they can. In this case, though, the legal issue wasn't serious; there was no chance the SC would hear it. To argue that state court interpretations of state law intrude on the rights of other states is so transparently stupid it was a waste of time and money to even file the briefs.

But it does have bearing on how reprehensible George Bush is when he sneeringly denounces the citizens of Massachusets as "immoral" because they disagree with his theocratic bigorty...

Catholic Action League!

If it wasn't for activist judges, blacks and whites would still be going to "seperate but equal" schools. Get with it.

You're missing the point. The divorce rate has zilch to do with the question of whether two people have the right to get married. It's a statistic thrown up by the left to counter the 'sanctity' of marriage argument put out by the Christians, but it's a null argument because it has fuck all to do with whether a person's rights should be enforced. What gay couples do after they get married has little to do with the argument of allowing them to marry in the first place.

My point was not that divorce rates have a bearing on the right to get married. I merely meant to augment my own news story in reference to the world not ending because gay people can get married in my state.

Pardon.

Yay! It's all about the baby steps. I take comfort in the smallest of victories.

Hopefully, we'll see more of these as the years go by.

yes, that wacky left is always trying to toss out those rational statistics to counter the hysterical biggotry of the GOP. what will they think of next? if what couples do after they are married has little to do with the issue, why does opposition to granting them equal protection revolve around the doom that will befall our society once the horrible baby eating homos get hitched? because the parade of horribles argument is the one most likely to encite animus, bile, and ignorance; that's why. still, there is no reasonable reason to not grant same sex couples the same rights as male/female couples.

I despise the acronyms SCOTUS and POTUS.

Carry on.

for the most part, of course S_B is correct about the left's counter argument. however, presenting statistics as a part of an argument tends to steer the issue in the direction of the compelling state intersest question. stats aren't the end of the story but they do contribute the court's feeling satisfied that it is reaching a rational decision based on more than value judgment.

that being said, the court first has to decide if it is going to apply the strict scrutiny standard in the first place, which thus far, they do not purport to do. justice kennedy seemed to apply rational basis (a less stringent form of review of govt. action) in Lawrence v. Texas, while abandoning stare decisis, which is why i guess they declined to hear the challenge to the Mass. court ruling - they just don't know how to handle it yet and are waiting for the political process to work itself out.

i agree. i prefer "the court," or "the zany activist bench."

do they wear tights and capes like the super friends?

Well, I agree with s5 that statistics such as the divorce rate should not be the relevant question, at least as a moral matter, but my point was that they become relevant once opponents of same-sex marriage argue the "sanctity of marriage" point. The phrase, which is of course purposely vague, is, I think, intended to suggest that there are nondiscriminatory, rational bases for banning SSM. Statistics refuting those "legitimate" or "nondiscriminatory" reasons are relevant because they pick off one-by-one the theories advanced in support of a ban (just as the MA SJC very convincingly did in its opinion) and leave you with the true purpose of such a ban, namely, preserving the sanctity of marriage as a heterosexual institution--a purpose that is clearly discriminatory.

I've heard many opponents of same-sex marriage argue (and I hear echoes of this argument in S-B's comments above) that b/c marriage is a right conferred by the state, the burden is on somehow on gay couples to show that they are entitled to that right. But when the state grants a right to some people and not to others, the constitution, be it state or federal, requires it to have some reason (besides sheer invidious discrimination) for doing so. This is why states (and opponents more generally) have to come up with rationales for upholding a law that permits one group but not another to marry, such as those rejected by the MA SJC or the sanctity of marriage argument, and why arguments and statistics that may show why those reasons are pretextual are in fact quite important.

With respect to strict scrutiny, note that the MA court did not apply that standard but instead applied the most permissive standard and still found the three reasons advanced by the state to violate its constitution (quite convincingly, I might add, if you have not read the opinion).