Word: same-sex
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Last month, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that banning same-sex marriage violated the state’s constitution. The four-to-three decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health affirmed the humanity of gays and lesbians by holding that same-sex couples are entitled to all “protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage.” Recognizing the dignity and equality of all individuals, the Court rewrote the common law definition of marriage as “the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others...
...marriage license to Hillary and Julie Goodridge, but instead gave the legislature 180 days “to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of [the Court’s] opinion.” As gay and lesbian couples plan June weddings, opponents of same-sex marriage are concocting schemes to circumvent the Court’s ruling...
...bans on interracial marriage, a decision that also was unpopular in its day but now seems fundamental to our notion of justice. The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay organization, has just kicked off a $1 million print, radio and television ad campaign to give a human face to same-sex parents and their children. Evan Wolfson, executive director of the pro-gay group Freedom to Marry, likes to quote Gandhi: "He said, 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.' Well, our opponents are no longer ignoring us or laughing...
...Same-sex marriage is, at its heart, an issue of fairness. The benefits and special status that our government grants two people who choose to make their lives together cannot be restricted to those couples who differ in gender. As the SJC correctly identified, prohibiting gays and lesbians from marrying those they love repeats one of the ugliest and most persistent perversions of American civil society—it creates a second, inferior class of residents not entitled to the full protections and privileges of citizenship. It took too many years for America to realize that it was wrong...
...would allow this hair-splitting restriction to pass into law. What is perfectly clear to any level-headed observer is that civil unions are an unacceptable resolution to the question of gay marriage, even if they are far preferable to the status quo. The most important priority is that same-sex couples be afforded the privileges of marriage, but as long as they are prevented from taking part in the very same institution as heterosexuals—name and all—gays and lesbians will still be penned in an un-American second-class citizenship...