Massachusetts weighs up gay marriages

[Nicholas_J]

Massachusetts could become the first US state to grant full marriage privileges to homosexual couples, raising the stakes in an issue that has caused bitter division across the country and increasing the likelihood of a national ruling on same-sex marriage.

The state's Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision as soon as Monday on gay and lesbian marriage.

The Massachusetts lawsuit involves seven couples, who sued the state because their applications for marriage licences were denied. They claim this violates sections of the state's constitution that outlaw discrimination.

Several similar cases have been presented across the country, but have not made it to the state Supreme Court level.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.co...

[Ediacara]

1. They're already a week late

This decission was expected Monday of last week. And that was after four months of thinking about it!

[Nicholas_J]

5. They decided to put it on hold

And wait for the result of the U.S. Supreme Court on the Texas Anti-Sodomy laws. And another case that stated that all such decsions about marriage are the right of states, and not the federal courts.

Th Mass Supreme Court decision will come as early as tomorrow, and the U.S. Supreme COurt decision is that the Massachusetts Court decvision will be FINAL and cannot be appealed to a higher level.

[dsc]

2. This is an interesting thing

From later in the same article.

Hawaii already grants the partners of gays and lesbians certain legal privileges, and Vermont confers virtually all of the rights of marriage to gay couples through its "civil unions". However, such laws are not binding outside those states. Thirty-six states ban gay marriage.

I admit to not knowing this is accurate (they are wrong on this being the first case of its kind to reach a state supreme court) but if it is then there are only 13 states where Dean's civil unions are at all different from if he had granted marriage rights. Given that Ohio is one of those 13 and the only reason it wasn't banned here was that there was no same sex marriage yet that leaves 12. Again though I can't be sure that this is accurate since they errored on the other thing.

[NewJerseyDem]

3. Didn't Hawaii already do this?

Didn't the Hawaii supreme court say that gay marriage had to be legal? And then wasn't there a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage? I thought I heard about that and I would think that the same thing might happen in Massachusetts.

[LeftCoast]

4. Hawaii SC did say it had to be legal

So they changed the state constitution.

[ButterflyBlood]

6. but the legislature in MA is holding that up

so if the ruling is in favor of gay marriages, MA will grant gay marriage or civil unions.