Supreme Court Declines Mass. Gay Marriage Case
By Gina Holland
The Associated Press
Monday, November 29, 2004; 10:37 AM
The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.
Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. They declined, without comment.
Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Cons ution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.
Their attorney, Mathew Staver, said in a Supreme Court filing that the Cons ution should "protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power."
Federal courts, he said, should defend people's right "to live in a republican form of government free from tyranny, whether that comes at the barrel of a gun or by the decree of a court."
Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. "Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not cons ute an actual injury," she said.
Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly told justices that voters can overrule the Supreme Court by adopting a cons utional amendment.
The lawsuit was filed by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers.
The conservative law group had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high profile issue, the cons utionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.
State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006. Voters in 11 states approved cons utional amendments banning gay marriage in November elections. President Bush has promised to make a federal anti-gay marriage amendment a priority of his second term.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court narrowly ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state cons ution to wed.
The nation's high court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. Last May, justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.
The case is Largess v. Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Massachusetts, 04-420.
I think the Court made the correct decision. Leave it up to the States.
Not a huge surprise, particularly since the substantive issue wasn't really before the Court and since the plaintiff appears to lack any real injury. Even had same-sex marriage been a substantive issue, I suspect we would have seen a number of denials before the Court agreed to consider such a case. Ins utionally, the Court tends to be wary of wading in on issues that have just begun to percolate up from the district courts and courts of appeals. I wouldn't read much into this denial.
I read that they are not ready to go along with Bush's desire for a cons utional amendment to ban gay-marriage.
The Supreme Court has nothing to do with Cons utional Amendments, so they don't have to be.
Anyway, this is a good sign. The Court is leaving this a state's issue, as it should be. Just as states like Oklahoma decided to ban gay marriage, it should be left to Mass. to allow it if they so desire.
[waiting for screaming from the fundys]
I think this is properly a states rights issue also.
However, the is going to hit the fan when a same-sex couple living in a state which has banned same-sex marriage travels to a state where it's legal, gets married there, then returns home and demands their marriage be recognized by their home state.
That will draw a Supreme Court appeal.
You'd think same sex marriage bans would have already been reviewed by a court on the basis that it violates the civil rights act which prohibits discrimination based on gender.
I don't know why it isn't brought up on those grounds.
I know this is a hot button issue with many, but if you look at it from a neutral point of view (a lost art, I admit), if they recognize straight marraiges from that state then they'd have to recognize the SS ones or be hit with a discrimination suit which they'd lose. That's why the RR are in such a tizzy to get an amendment. They know the dike is cracking (no pun intended).However, the is going to hit the fan when a same-sex couple living in a state which has banned same-sex marriage travels to a state where it's legal, gets married there, then returns home and demands their marriage be recognized by their home state.
I still don't get how same sex marriages threaten marriage.
It's not like the divorce rate is going to go down by banning same sex marriages.
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