I presume some Christianists will soon be declaring the Commonwealth’s Supreme Judicial Court’s decision today another exercise in rampant "judicial activism." The decision – supported by the far right’s bete noire, Margaret Marshall – upholds a 1913 anti-miscegenation law that made Massachusetts marriages invalid if they were entered into by residents of another state with the intent of violating the marriage laws of that other state. (The law was crafted to stop inter-racial couples getting married in Massachusetts and returning to, say, Virginia and trying to have their marriage recognized as legal. Virginia’s current position on same-sex marriage is identical to Virginia’s previous position on inter-racial marriage: it’s an abomination.) The Massachusetts Court’s decision seems to me to be the right one. If the Massachusetts legislature wants to repeal the 1913 law, they are entitled to. Until then, it’s the law. It also seems clear to me that other states may legally and constitutionally decide not to recognize Massachusetts’ marriages, with or without the 1913 law.
Along with other federalist conservatives, I believe in the right of individual states to make their own decisions on marriage rights. They are so doing. I think it makes sense in a country as diverse and polarized as this one to allow Alabama to have different laws on gay relationships than, say, Oregon. What Massachusetts has now done therefore is to destroy the last crumbling pillar of the argument for a federal constitutional ban on all legal protections for gay couples. The whole point of this amendment was supposed to be to stop Massachusetts marriages from being "forced" on neighboring or other states. Now, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled these marriages invalid out of state before they even begin! The debate is now over, right? And the Republicans will withdraw their polarizing "Marriage Protection Amendment" from Congress this summer, right? There’s no need for it whatever now, is there?
The Dish 