“I think that all of them should come out in favor of gay marriage, but currently the political atmosphere in the United States is not conducive in most mainstream politics,” said Schneider, who is also a Crimson editor.
The state Legislature appeared ready to pursue a constitutional amendment and Gov. W. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., encouraged that course of action in a statement released yesterday.
“We’ve heard from the court, but not from the people....This issue is too important to leave to a one-vote majority of the SJC,” he said.
The dissenting opinions dismissed the majority’s semantic distinction, and Justice Martha B. Sosman quoted William Shakespeare in her dissent.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet,” Sosman wrote.
The SJC’s majority opinion invoked the words of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education decision.
“The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal,” the justices wrote.
Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 called the majority opinion “outrageous and outlandlish,” and decried the court for overstepping its bounds.
“They’ve just taken the phrase of equal protection that has no legal connection to marriage and used it as an excuse to impose their own beliefs on the rest of us,” he said.
Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree, who signed the friend-of-the-court brief authored by Tribe, said yesterday’s decree from the high court represented an essential step in the gay rights movement.
“It reaffirms the principle that our Constitution protects the rights of all citizens and that discrimination is intolerable,” Ogletree said.
—Staff Writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.
A LANDMARK RULING
NOV. 18, 2003: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) rules that limiting marriage to heterosexual couples is unconstitutional and gives the state legislature 180 days to take action.
NOV. 24, 2003: The Cambridge City Council instructs the city clerk to be ready to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples “as soon as legally possible.”
FEB. 4, 2004: The SJC clarifies its earlier ruling, rejecting a proposed civil unions bill in the state Senate and paving the way for gay marriage in the state.
MAY 17, 2004: Massachusetts is slated to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.