December 2003: Civil unions are unfair and unconstitutional

At the same time, some legislators are also trying everything they can to prevent same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts. They say, “What about this option the Court apparently gave us to take such action as we may deem appropriate?”

Massachusetts statehouse

The Senate sends an inquiry to the Court asking,

Does … prohibit[ing] same-sex couples from entering into marriage but allow[ing] them to form civil unions … comply with the equal protection and due process requirements?

The Court replies bluntly,

The answer to the question is ‘No.’

In other words, if you had bothered to read our decision, it would be clear that when we said marriage we meant marriage. The Court says that,

[W]ithout the right to choose to marry, same-sex couples are not only denied full protection of the laws, but are ‘excluded from the full range of human experience.’

The [difference] between the terms ‘civil marriage’ and ‘civil union’ is not innocuous; it is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples to second-class status. … The bill would have the effect of maintaining and fostering a stigma of exclusion that the Constitution prohibits. It would deny to same-sex ‘spouses’ only a status that is specially recognized in society and has significant social and other advantages.

— basically that, whereas it was bad enough that same-sex couples had been discriminated against unintentionally by the rules that kept them from getting married, how much worse a law that explicitly and purposely discriminates against them.

Timeline key: progress (green), no progress (red), pending court cases (purple),
events that are neutral, not directly related, or with both positive and negative effects (black)