Massachusetts court backs same-sex marriage
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 18, 2003
The Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has ruled that the Massachusetts Constitution does not prohibit the marriage of same-gender couples.
In a 4-3 decision passed down Tuesday, the court gave the state’s legislators 180 days to enact a law that would give two men or two women the right to be married in a civil ceremony.
The ruling did not address the question of whether the Church will be required to recognize the legitimacy of civil marriages of homosexual couples.
The court ruled that the Commonwealth “has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples.”
It declared that “barring an individual from the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution.”
One of the arguments made in the dissents was that the case was not, as the court’s majority concluded “about government intrusions into matters of personal liberty,” but “about whether the state must endorse and support [the choices of same-sex couples] by changing the institution of civil marriage to make its benefits, obligations and responsibilities applicable to them.”
The majority ruling did note that the decision “marks a change in the history of our marriage law. Many people hold deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions that marriage should be limited to the union of one man and one woman, and that homosexual conduct is immoral. Many hold equally strong religious, moral, and ethical convictions that same-sex couples are entitled to be married, and that homosexual persons should be treated no differently than their heterosexual neighbors.”
That statement could have framed the issue as it has been debated in the Presbyterian Church (USA). The PCUSA Constitution defines marriage as being a union of a man and a woman. The denomination’s highest court has ruled that sessions cannot authorize and ministers cannot perform marriage rites for same-gender couples.
After two years of judicial frenzy over the PCUSA’s prohibition against same-gender marriages and the ordination of practicing homosexuals, only one of dozens of cases has resulted in disciplinary action. The Rev. A. Stephen Van Kuiken of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati was stripped of his ordination for publicly performing “marriage” ceremonies for homosexual couples.
In another high-profile case, the Presbytery of Hudson River exonerated ministers who publicly stated that they had performed same-gender marriages.
Attempting to appeal to a “moderate middle” of the denomination, the Covenant Network of Presbyterians has resisted calling for homosexual marriages even as it has worked to repeal PCUSA law prohibiting the ordination of practicing homosexuals.
But some of the organization’s leaders, including Jack B. Rogers, moderator of the 2002 General Assembly, have individually advocated homosexual marriages.
In 2000, David Van Dyke, pastor of Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, told a Covenant Network workshop that he conducted a same-sex service for a homosexual couple. Sometime after that service, Van Dyke said he preached a sermon in which he told his congregation that “I cannot see any difference between a holy union and a heterosexual wedding.”
In 2001, Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), issued an advisory opinion on what he believes should be the guidelines for Presbyterian ministers who conduct ceremonies for same-sex couples.
Kirkpatrick’s guidelines are essentially the same as those laid down by the General Assembly’s Permanent Judicial Commission when it approved same-sex ceremonies as part of its decision in a church court case.
Kirkpatrick said ministers “may not perform a ceremony that they consider to be the same as a marriage ceremony nor may they permit their facilities to be utilized for any such ceremony. That was the rule before the Benton [Permanent Judicial Commission] case and before Amendment ‘O’ was proposed. It is still the rule …
“They may provide pastoral care in the form of worship services that ‘celebrate a loving, caring and committed relationship’ for same-sex couples, but must also advise such couples that such a service does not constitute a marriage and may not be held out as such.”
The issue of same-sex unions flared again at the 215th General Assembly in Denver in May when commissioners considered a controversial paper on “Families in Transition.” That document saw no distinction between homosexuals living together and traditionally married couples.
Lacking any substantive theological footings, the paper was sent back to the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to be redone.