Posted by
JDComments on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:32:12 PM
The Supreme Court of Massachusetts has finally admitted it has limits by
announcing it cannot force the State Legislature to vote on a voter sponsored amendment to ban gay marriage in the only state which recognizes it.
Interestingly enough, this is the same court which had no problem finding the right for gays to marry in the state constitution through the logic that because it was not forbidden it was required.
By the same token, in the decision against forcing a vote, they humbly said:
Beyond resorting to aspirational language that relies on the presumptive good faith of elected representatives, there is no presently articulated judicial remedy for the Legislature's indifference to, or defiance of, its constitutional duties
So they can create rights from whole cloth but cannot force the Legislature to perform it's constitutional duties. I may be a judicial neophyte but it appears to me that something is wrong here. While I applaud the Court's restraint in exercising it's power, they chose a very peculiar time to do so.
It strikes me that they use the state constitution a bit selectively, enforcing a right that does not exist, while abdicating their responsibility to see that the government abides by the document. Interesting don't you think?
But then again, maybe I am just a paranoid Conservative.