Straight couples are turning to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing gay marriage as philosophical inspiration for their own secular weddings:
With a little deft editing, respecting both the listener’s patience and the layperson’s general disinterest in legal footnotes, a bride- or groom-to-be could stitch together some of [Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall]’s most elegant observations into an affirmative case for marriage that even the Westboro Baptist Church would not protest. As support for gay marriage increased, that softer packaging of [Goodridge v. Department of Public Health]—and the universal themes it advances—found a foothold in the weddings canon.
It was Marshall’s line about “yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection” that grabbed Bethany Albertson when, in 2008, she started looking online for material to use in her secular ceremony that fall. … “For us, the thing was ‘How do you make it meaningful when it’s not a religious ceremony?’?” says Albertson. “That opinion had to make the case why civil marriage was important.”
A taste of Marshall's opinion:
Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family … Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.
The Dish 