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Mitt Romney Pushes for Marriage Amendment
In a letter dated April 11, 2006, Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, has asked the State Senate’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary to expedite the consideration of an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. The letter follows up on the successful petition drive in Massachusetts to amend what Romney describes in his letter as "the oldest functioning written constitution in the world.” "You now have before you an amendment from the people, written by the people, duly presented with the people’s signatures, according to the procedures set forth in the Constitution of the Commonwealth...” The salvo is the latest fired by Romney in an attempt to legislate around "Hillary Goodridge & others vs. Department of Public Health,” the landmark case decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2003.
Story Continues Below The Massachusetts case had its origins in 2001, when seven gay couples went to their city and town halls to obtain marriage licenses. All were denied, leading them to sue the state Department of Public Health, which administers the state's marriage laws. A Suffolk Superior Court judge threw out the case in 2002, ruling that nothing in state law gives gay couples the right to marry. The couples immediately appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court. The plaintiffs argued that barring them from marrying a partner of the same sex denied them access to an intrinsic human experience and violated basic constitutional rights. They further argued that nothing in the state statute dictates that marriage be restricted to a man and a woman. The only restrictions, they said, are that couples cannot be closely related by blood, must be of appropriate age, must have passed certain blood tests, and must be willing to pay a license fee.
The Supreme Judicial Court agreed.
Editor's note:
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