Same-sex Marriage: The Moral And Legal Debate

On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts began performing marriages of same-sex couples. That state's Supreme Judicial Court had ruled in Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health 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." Fearing that courts in other states would follow suit, President George W. Bush called for a federal constitutio...