Three Separate And Unequal Classifications of Citizens

Mass Marrier has a great discussion of the MA SJC's ruling. While it is a disappointment, it was expected.

Mass "Family" Institute is practically messing their pants with joy over the ruling. Will they still call the Mass SJC "activist judges"? Of course they will as soon as it doesn't rule the way they want. However, the language in the ruling that they appear to ignore is the part where the justices talk about what would happen if the vote goes forward:

The only effect of a positive vote will be to make same-sex couples, and their families, unequal to everyone else; this is discrimination in its rawest form. Our citizens would, in the future, be divided into at least three separate and unequal classifications: heterosexual couples who enjoy the right to marry; same-sex couples who were married before the passage of the amendment (but who, if divorced, would not be permitted to remarry someone of the same sex); and same-sex couples who have never married and, barring the passage of another constitutional amendment on the subject, will be forever denied that right.

The Massachusetts legislature has two choices: put discrimination into the oldest state constitution or proclaim at "All people are created equal" They will make history one way or another.