When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled for the same-sex couples that sued, it wasn't a judges' coup d'etat, regardless of what some radio screamers say.
The question was pretty simple -- who has the right to apply for and receive a marriage license? The answer is simple too -- the requirements do not limit gender, present, former or future. That's all folks.
In most states, religious values appear in laws like so many chipmunks in the forest. They just keep popping up wherever you turn.
In contrast, almost certainly because of its colonial culture of civil contracts, the traditional religious opinions of marriage never crept into law.
Amusingly enough, while the court was trying to make the legislature act in the past two years, the legislature and particularly Senate President Bobby Travaglini was doing the same. He wanted the court to stick its collective neck out. Well he won and that means he lost. The long-open window of opportunity for the legislators to limit marriage to a man/woman couple slammed. Once the court said it was a constitutional issue, the legislature had to accept it or start a lengthy amendment procedure.
Virgil wrote that fortune favors the bold. In this case, the court wasn't even bold, just playing by the rules. It was that fortune disdained the cowards.
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