Posted on 02/22/2004 1:11:22 PM PST by MegaSilver
A majority of Massachusetts residents oppose legalizing gay marriage.
That's according to a new poll in The Boston Sunday Globe that shows a significant change since the state's highest court ruled three months ago that gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The poll indicated opposition to gay marriage has jumped 10 percentage points since a poll taken just days after the Supreme Judicial Court's Nov. 18 ruling legalizing gay marriages.
In the new poll, 35 percent supported legalizing gay marriage and 53 percent were opposed. In the earlier poll, 48 percent supported legalizing gay marriages, while 43 percent were opposed.
The telephone survey of 400 adults conducted earlier this week has a margin of error of five percentage points.
Are any of them legal?
If current trends continue... gays get to "marry"; and marriage becomes less desirable because of the way husbands and fathers are treated in divorce... eventually it will be mainly gays that "marry" (whatever it comes to mean then), and everyone else will co-habit. Marriage will lose its meaning and common law marriage will become more commonplace.
MOST OF US are not lefty nutcases.
We are just at the mercy of Bostonian cronyism.
We don't have a direct democracy here in Mass. The rulers take polls, and if it is going their way, we get to vote. If it looks like they might not get the results they want, we don't get to vote. -Tom
Too late! A woman in France just married her fiancee who has been dead for over a year. Viva la France, eh?! And kerry is an internationalist who thinks they are so much smarter than us dumb Americans.
TC
Does it prevent a women from marrying? No! Does it prohibit a black women from marrying? Of course not. How about a black man, does it prohibit a black man from marrying? Surely not. Then what specific individual can claim the legal definition of marriage discriminates so as to not allow them to marry? Seems to me the legal definition of marriage is open to all.
The only identifiable individual who might cry discrimination is one who may be sexually challenged i.e.; a male who believes he is a female, or a female who believes she is a male, but even so, the definition of marriage is in fact equally applicable to all, even to homosexuals as a homosexual male may marry a homosexual female and live happily ever after.
The truth is, the sexually challenged who now cry want something other than marriage and the question is, should the state support whatever it is and license it?
In addition, it is also claimed there is a wanting of proof that a compelling state interest exists for the statutory definition of marriage to prevail. But no one under our system of law is required to prove a compelling state interest exists for a legislative act to be constitutional, and, our judges are not their to engage in activism and second guess the wisdom of a state legislature by requiring a compelling state interest to be shown to them to give their judicial blessing to a legislative act .
On the other hand, those who now cry that equal protection of the law is denied them by the legal definition of marriage and attack a statute as being unconstitutional, do carry the burden of proving the act is unconstitutional: seeBALDWIN v. STATE OF MISSOURI, 281 U.S. 586 (1930)
The burden is not on the state to establish the constitutionality of its laws, nor are we limited in supporting their constitutionality to the reasons assigned by the state court . I do not assume, from anything that has been said in this or the earlier cases, that constitutional power to tax the transfer of notes and bonds at their business situs, no longer exists. As this Court has often held, the burden rests upon him who assails a statute to [281 U.S. 586, 599] establish its unconstitutionality. Upon this ambiguous record it is for the appellant to show that the stock and bonds subjected to the tax had no business situs within the taxing jurisdiction. See No. 454, Corporation Commission of Oklahoma v. Lowe, 281 U.S. 431 , 50 S. Ct. 397, 74 L. Ed. -, decided May 19, 1930, No. 485, Toombs v. Citizens Bank of Waynesboro, 281 U.S. 643 , 50 S. Ct. 434, 74 L. Ed. -, decided this day. Mr. Justice HOLMES and Mr. Justice BRANDEIS join in this opinion .
JWK
ACRS
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of darkness."___Supreme Court Justice William Douglas
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