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Ruling sets off clash on same-sex marriages

Even the first official state visit of a US leader to England in decades couldn't keep US President George W. Bush out of a fray over whether men can marry men, and women marry women.

The highest court in the US state of Massachusetts ruled on Tuesday that a ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional, setting the stage for a battle not only within the various arms of state government but also on the national scene.

In an unusual reaction to a state court ruling, the decision drew fire from the peaks of Washington power.

"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman," Bush said in a statement issued along the way from Washington to London.

Not so, said Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the majority opinion in the 4 to 3 decision.

"Marriage is a vital social institution ... It brings stability to our society," she wrote. "Barring an individual from the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution."

Thus the war lines were drawn between a growing number of gay couples who live together, raise children and want heterosexual-marriage-type protections for their family and the legions of straight couples who believe such arrangements violate the natural order.

"I don't think we should put people in jail for what goes on in their bedrooms," religious Christian evangelist Jerry Falwell told CNN. "But I think [this ruling is] something a vast majority of people don't want."

The court decision could provoke new impetus among conservative Republicans for the long-brewing push for amendment to the US constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual institution.

Conservatives have been frustrated by moves by states like Massachusetts and Vermont, which recently approved same sex civil unions but not marriages, to defy the federal 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. That law defines marriage as a union of separate sexes.

The advocates of such an amendment found a willing leader on Tuesday. In his statement, Bush declared himself ready to go to "work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."

The deeply divided Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4 to 3 on a case filed by seven same-sex couples who had been turned down when they applied for marriage licenses, media reports said.

In the majority opinion, Marshall also wrote that the primary purpose of marriage was "the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children."

Justice Robert Cordy, in a dissenting opinion, disagreed, saying the legislature, not the court, must decide an issue so "deeply rooted in social policy."

And Justice Martha Sosman, in another dissenting opinion, said the phenomenon of gay relationships was too recent and too little studied to guarantee that "redefinition will not have unintended and undesirable social consequences."

Creating a grace period for the ruling to take effect, the court said the couples were entitled to marry but also gave the legislature 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion."

That move put the highly volatile issue back in the lap of the Massachusetts legislature, which is already considering a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The constitution currently does not specify the sex of marriage-license applicants.

No US state sanctions gay marriages, but Vermont allows same-sex couples to tie the knot in civil unions, which give them nearly the same rights as married couples within Vermont but not outside the state.
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