On Nov. 29, the United States Supreme Court avoided a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law that allows such unions.
According to CNN, the justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Goodridge, et al. v. Department of Public Health, et al., that legalized same-sex marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment.
Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The critics' attorney, Mathew Staver, stated in a Supreme Court filing that the Constitution should 'protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power.'
Representing the opposing side, Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, had told the justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. 'Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury,' she said.
The lawsuit was filed by the Liberty Counsel on behalf of Robert Largess, the vice president of the Catholic Action League, and 11 state lawmakers. The conservative law group, which is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., had persuaded the Supreme Court in October to consider another high-profile issue, the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government property. The court agreed to look at that church-state issue before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He is working from home while receiving chemotherapy and radiation and will miss court sessions for the next two weeks.
The U.S. Supreme Court had stayed out of the Massachusetts fight on a previous occasion. In May, the justices refused to intervene and block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.
In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance in 2006 to change the state constitution to allow civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.
