BunkoSquad

Aren't we sumthin!

I'm really glad this went the way it did. I do wonder, though, if the anti-marriage people will give up, if this will be a recurring thing every few years.



One thing that I haven't heard brought up, and I'm not entirely sure if my logic is sound, or my knowledge of the decision is adequate enough, is the following:

A) There are four possibilities of marriage legality (i.e. OSM only, SSM only, both, and neither).

B) The 2003 ruling eliminated two of those (OSM only and SSM only).

C) The proposed (and defeated!) amendment would have eliminated the "both" option.

D) Ergo, if the amendment had passed, the only option would have been "no marriage."

Is that what they had in mind?

I assume that they felt that Step B wouldn't have killed the OSM only option...whether it would have or not, I'm not sure, since I never learned the exact wording.

What would have been fun would be if the amendment DID pass (shudder) would be for a gay couple to try and legally change their names to One Man and One Woman. Then they could get married and sue every other married couple.

Sorry if this is obvious, but the constitution outranks any court's ruling, so if the constitution were changed, the 2003 ruling would have been void.

"I'm really glad this went the way it did. I do wonder, though, if the anti-marriage people will give up, if this will be a recurring thing every few years."

It's possible. As I understand it, though, if they want to do this whole circus again, they have to wait three years before they can start a new ballot initiative. Then it has to be voted on and passed by two consecutive ConCons (like this time), so the earliest it could possibly make it to the ballot would be 2012.

That would be almost ten years after Goodridge, and the sky will still not have fallen, and I just don't think public support would be there, even as much as it is now, because more people would have figured out that other people's marriages don't affect them.

"Sorry if this is obvious, but the constitution outranks any court's ruling, so if the constitution were changed, the 2003 ruling would have been void."



The constitution does outrank court rulings in general, but I don't think that would have applied in this case, since it did not directly contradict the ruling. It (merely?) would have made it so that the only valid situation that satisfies both the ruling and the amendment would be a lack of marriage at all.


I think.


I'm not a constitutional scholar, mores the pity.