Mass Legalizes Gay Marriage – Pets Next

Mass Facts: The 2000 Census estimated there were about 19,000 gay couples
in Mass., and about 659,000 nationwide, or less than 1 percent of households.
Provincetown is the community in Mass. with the highest rate of gay partners,
about 15 percent of households.

The plaintiffs are members of our community,
our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends. We share a common humanity
…. Simple
principles of decency dictate that we extend to the plaintiffs,
and to their new status, full acceptance, tolerance, and respect. We
should do so because it is the right thing to do."

Mass SJC Justice John M. Greaney

Hear hear, seconds the Dowbrigade. People should be free to marry whomever
or whatever they want. We are romantic enough to believe that love should
be the prime requisite for a legal marriage, and if the parties involved
happen to be of the same sex, so what?

Of course, the Dowbrigade’s opinion is not usually given much weight
in arguments on this topic, as we also believe people should b allowed
to marry their pets. Love, after all, knows no specieal bounds.

The Dowbrigade even knew a man once who loved a baseball glove with
all his heart.  It
was a very special glove, it had been the favorite glove of some old
time Negro League star whose name is long forgotten.  The man had
the glove in a special case in his living room, on a satin cushion, in
the middle of a kind of altar. He really loved that glove.  He treated
it like a queen.  Why shouldn’t he be allowed to marry it?

Be that as it may, here is the latest
on the groundbreaking decision from the Massachusets Supreme Judicial
Court, legalizing gay marriage in the state.

Massachusetts’s highest court ruled 4-3 today
that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution.
The court ordered the Legislature to come up with a solution within
180 days.

"We declare that 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," Chief
Justice Margaret Marshall wrote in the 4-3 decision.

from Boston.com,including a link to the PDF of the full decision