Get Over the Rainbow

America treats the issue of gay marriage similar to the way the abortion issue was treated. Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian. Though publicly opposing gay marriage for political reasons, it would take a father void of any compassion to not support his daughter’s right to marry her partner. Well, the fact that the “father” in this case is Dick Cheney, his daughter might not get his personal support!

In November 2003, a major ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court caused a new uproar over gay rights. The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled, by a 4-3 vote that the state’s constitution contained no specific wording that prohibited same-sex marriage. This was the first time a court had decided that even though same-sex marriage was excluded from the social fabric of America, there was nothing that legally banned same-sex marriages. Since federal law dictates that a marriage performed in one state is to be recognized in another state, the ruling by the Massachusetts Court had national implications.

The constitutional question before the Massachusetts Supreme Court  challenged the state for using “its formidable regulatory authority to ban same-sex couples from civil marriages?” The court ruled the state did not have legal grounds upon which to do that.

Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall separated the secular role of the state from the religious battles that have made gay marriage the new hotly debated social issue for citizens and politicians in America. Chief Justice Marshall wrote, “Many people hold deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions and that homosexual conduct is immoral. “Many hold equally strong religious, moral and ethical convictions that same-sex couples are entitled to be married, and that homosexual persons should be treated no differently than their heterosexual neighbors. Neither view answers the question before us.”

Chief Justice Marshall based the decision on the law and not emotion, when she wrote, “The court was asked to decide on the civil, not religious, aspect of marriage.” A majority of the justices ruled there was no constitutional justification for denying same-sex couples “the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriages” if denial is based only on their sexual orientation. Justice John M. Greaney wrote in his opinion, “as a matter of constitutional law, neither the mantra of tradition, nor individual conviction, can justify the perpetuation of a hierarchy in which couples of the same sex and their families are deemed less worthy of social and legal recognition than couples of the opposite sex and their families.”