Ifølge dagens New York Times på:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/national/05GAYS.html
har Massachusetts Højesteret fundet frem til at ægteskabsloven også
gælder for ægteskaber mellem to mænd eller to kvinder.
Det betyder at alle regler der vedrører heteroseksuelle ægteskaber, også
vil være gældende for homoseksuelle ægteskaber, herunder adoption,
kirkelig vielse og retsstilling. Der er altså /ikke/ tale om et
registreret partnerskab, men om et ægte ægteskab.
Her bringes artiklen:
Massachusetts Gives New Push to Gay Marriage in Strong Ruling
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: February 5, 2004
OSTON, Feb. 4 - Massachusetts' highest court removed the state's last
barrier to gay marriage on Wednesday, ruling that nothing short of
full-fledged marriage would comply with the court's earlier ruling in
November, and that civil unions would not pass muster.
The ruling means that starting on May 17 same-sex couples can get
married in Massachusetts, making it the only state to permit gay
marriage. Beyond that, the finding is certain to inflame a divisive
debate in state legislatures nationwide and in this year's presidential
race.
"The dissimilitude between the terms `civil marriage' and `civil union'
is not innocuous," four of seven justices on the state's Supreme
Judicial Court found. "It is a considered choice of language that
reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual,
couples to second-class status."
The ruling came in response to a request by the Massachusetts Senate
asking the court whether a bill giving same-sex couples the same rights
and benefits of marriage, but calling their relationships civil unions,
would comply with its November decision saying that gays had a
constitutional right to marry.
The court said that such a bill "would have the effect of maintaining
and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits. It
would deny to same-sex 'spouses' only a status that is specially
recognized in society and has significant social and other advantages."
"The Massachusetts Constitution," the court said, "does not permit such
invidious discrimination, no matter how well intentioned."
The ruling will probably give new impetus to a push by many
conservatives for a constitutional amendment that would limit marriage
to unions joining a man and a woman.
In a statement Wednesday, President Bush condemned the Massachusetts
court's latest ruling but stopped short of explicitly endorsing a
constitutional amendment. "Marriage is a sacred institution between a
man and a woman," he said. "If activist judges insist on redefining
marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional
process. We must do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of
marriage."
Wednesday's decision caused an uproar in the Massachusetts Legislature,
where lawmakers are scheduled on Wednesday to vote on an amendment to
the state's Constitution banning same-sex marriage. Many lawmakers in
the largely Democratic, largely Roman Catholic body had supported civil
unions but not gay marriage and were hoping the court would not force
them to make an all-or-nothing decision.
At least one influential legislator, State Representative Eugene
O'Flaherty, the chairman of the House Judiciary committee and a backer
of civil unions, said he was almost certain to vote for the amendment
now.
An amendment could not take effect until November 2006, because it
would need to win passage in two consecutive legislative sessions and be
approved in a voter referendum.
Nationally, the decision vaults the issue to a more prominent role in
the presidential election, especially since the Democratic front-runner,
Senator John Kerry, who supports civil unions and opposes same-sex
marriage, is from Massachusetts.
It will also undoubtedly unleash activity in legislatures and
courtrooms nationwide, as activists on each side of the issue seek to
use the Massachusetts ruling to influence policy elsewhere.
Already, 38 states have laws defining marriage as a heterosexual
institution, and 16 states are considering constitutional amendments
that would ban same-sex marriages. Congress also passed a law in 1996,
the Defense of Marriage Act, prohibiting federal recognition of gay
marriages and relieving states of any obligation to recognize gay
marriages from states where they might be legal.
As recently as Tuesday, fueled in part by the November court decision
in Massachusetts - like Wednesday's, a 4-3 ruling - the Ohio Legislature
approved a strict ban on same-sex unions, barring state agencies from
giving benefits to both gay and heterosexual domestic partners.
Opponents of gay marriage vowed on Wednesday to increase their efforts
further and push for an amendment to the federal Constitution.
"This case will determine the future of marriage throughout America,"
said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "If
same-sex couples 'marry' in Massachusetts and move to other states, the
Defense of Marriage Act will be left vulnerable to the same federal
courts that have banned the Pledge of Allegiance and sanctioned
partial-birth abortion."
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Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, said "if the
court is allowed to get away with these decisions with no
accountability, it is the beginning of the crumbling of our democracy."
Proponents of same-sex marriages said they were hopeful that the
Massachusetts ruling might lend legitimacy to such unions in other
states. "We are really facing this onslaught of religious- and
political-right attacks across the country, but we are hoping that
fair-minded people will reject it and will reject this culture war,"
said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force.
Legal experts said there would inevitably be legal challenges filed by
same-sex couples who marry in Massachusetts and move to other states.
"There's going to be a fist fight in Ohio," said Arthur Miller, a
Harvard law professor. "There'll be a situation, for example, in which a
spouse of a couple married in Massachusetts but living in Ohio tries to
inherit and make claims, and that will end up in the U.S. Supreme
Court."
Same-sex couples in Massachusetts and other states began marriage
plans, but several said they were proceeding cautiously. "When I see
those first couples coming from City Hall, I'll say, 'it's real, but
it's really real,' " said Bev Kunze, 48, a telecommunications manager in
Boston who plans to marry her partner of 11 years, Kathleen McCabe, 52,
a city planner.
Fred Kuhr, 36, the editor of In Newsweekly, a newspaper for gay men and
lesbians, plans to marry his partner, Kip Roberson, 39, director of the
Sharon, Mass., public library. But he said, "There are still roadblocks
in the way, and even though this is a great day in terms of this issue,
I'm not jumping up and down and walking down the aisle just yet."
The prospect of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts raises practical
questions: What will life be like for couples who marry here and move
back to a state that outlaws same-sex marriages? Or for couples in
Massachusetts who would be entitled to state marriage benefits but not
federal benefits, like the right to file taxes jointly or qualify for
Social Security payments?
Indeed, in a dissenting opinion on Wednesday, Justice Martha B. Sosman
listed some discrepancies. For example, she noted, same-sex couples
would be ineligible for federal health care or nursing home benefits,
and couples living in other states would not have the right to get
divorced there.
The majority opinion, however, said, "We would do a grave disservice to
every Massachusetts resident, and to our constitutional duty to
interpret the law, to conclude that the strong protection of individual
rights guaranteed by the Massachusetts Constitution should not be
available to their fullest extent in the Commonwealth because those
rights may not be acknowledged elsewhere."
Elizabeth Bartholet, a family-law professor at Harvard, said that even
though other states might officially disavow gay marriages, a
Massachusetts marriage certificate might informally encourage
recognition of same-sex unions in areas like employment, health care and
education.
"It doesn't mean everyone in that state subscribes to that," she said.
"It may, for example, make a real difference in terms of all kinds of
employment benefits that may be available to spouses. If you're living
in Massachusetts, it's going to be hard for your Texas-based employer to
deny you marital benefits."
Representative O'Flaherty said he would try to determine if the
Legislature might still be able to draw up a new marriage law that could
provide the court with a "rational basis why marriage should be a
institution between a man and a woman."
But even the state attorney general, Thomas Reilly, whose office argued
against same-sex marriage in the original case, said Wednesday's ruling
made clear "same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry
under Massachusetts law."
The court seemed to offer one alternative. In a footnote, the decision
found that same-sex unions would not have to be called marriages if "the
Legislature were to jettison the term `marriage' altogether."
Some lawmakers suggested they would pass the amendment to give the
public a say on it in a referendum. Gov. Mitt Romney agreed, saying "the
people of Massachusetts should not be excluded from a decision as
fundamental to our society as the definition of marriage."
Should an amendment pass, Mr. O'Flaherty said, legislators might ask
the court to issue a stay until the amendment process was complete - a
request legal experts thought the court would be unlikely to grant. Just
the same, he and others asked, what would happen to same-sex marriages
if, two and a half years from now, the state wound up making such
marriages illegal?
Katie Zezima contributed reporting for this article.
--
Per Erik Rønne