Full text of Mass. gay marriage ruling

Full text of Mass. gay marriage ruling:

This excerpt exemplifies judicial abandonment of the fundamental moral principles and expectations that underlie the law. Society and culture are built upon these foundational principles (as opposed to religious doctrine). For these 4 Massachusetts justices (3 opposed the decision) to suggest that 'the law' and the Constitution should be interpreted thus is a very bad omen for our future. They have made a grievous error. While they may be 'right' according to the words in the constitution, they are very wrong in the underlying reality of those words.

There will be a mammoth debate about this issue and I predict we will see a viable attempt to amend the Massachusetts constitution and the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as the state sanctioned union of one man and one woman.

Now that may not be sufficient in a genomic age. How shall we define a man and a woman? In any event, this is the beginning of a great national debate that will be a significant issue in the presidential campaign.

There is little weasel room here. Candidates must declare themselves as pro or con the definition of a marriage as above.

This issue, along with abortion and physician assisted suicide will be the defining moral issues of this campaign and perhaps the next.

The future course of our culture and society is at stake.
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" Barred access to the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions. That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law."