perfidy

In a decision that will be sure to arouse jubilation among some and existential loathing among others, the Massachusetts Supreme court found today that the state has no grounds for banning gay marriage, but also did not order marriage certificates be given to the seven couples that brought the original suit.

The Massachusetts legislature has been given 180 days to come up with a solution that is in keeping with the decision.

Paranoid frothing from the Moral Majority and paranoid right-wingers begins.... nnnnnnow.

[wik] .... and keeps on rollin'. These people all sound like the nutty neighbor in the Dead Milkmen's immortal "Stuart": "Do you know what the queers are doing to our soil? Building huge underground landing strips for gay martians."

[alsø wik] Post edited for kicks and giggles, 11:54 AM

[alsø alsø wik] My favorite is when anti-gay-rights activists compare letting gay couples get some civil rights to stuff like pigf*cking or NAMBLA, as if they were equivalent. If I could, I'd buy futures today in outrageously bigoted rhetoric.

[starring] Naturally, Eugene Volokh has some insight into the case. He observes that-- get this-- the Massachusetts state ERA paved the way for today's decision on gay marriage. It's true! Go read! Quoth the Volokh, "[T]his decision -- and the Hawaii decision cited by the concurrence, which has since been reversed by the Hawaii voters -- shows us that we shouldn't lightly dismiss plausible, facially valid textual arguments (the text bars discrimination based on sex, and the marriage laws do treat people differently based on their sex) as "canards," "scare tactics," or "hysteric[s]." The anti-ERA forces, much as I probably disagree with most of them on many things, have proved prescient." [emphasis in original.]

It's been weeks since I took a swipe at the PATRIOT Act, the RAVE Act, etc., so here goes. Volokh's observation cuts both ways. Just as bigots (and I use that term knowing full well it's sometimes inaccurate and incendiary-- it's my petard, and I shall hoist myself upon it!) maybe DID have something to fear from the implications of the ERA, likewise good patriots have something to fear from creative readings of recent Federal legislation ostensibly aimed at terrorism.

Chalk one up for us loony "moral-issues liberals!"