You Don't Have To Be A Clueless Hypocrite To Be A Judge In Massachusetts...

...but it doesn't hurt.

In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judiciary Court And Most High Over Lords re-defined marriage to include same-sex couples, ruling that despite 200 years of having marriage mean "a man and a woman," John Adams actually meant "any two people who want to hook up." He just didn't know it, and neither did any of our elected representatives.

So four members of the Massachusetts judiciary ruled that the people had to change the definition of marriage, whether they wanted to or not. (Every poll continues to show that the people of Massachusetts still don't, by the way.)

Imagine my "spit-out-your-coffee" astonishment, then, when I read today about the SJC's ruling on a malpractice case brought by a woman whose partner died of cancer and wanted marital benefits extending back to before the 2004 creation of same-sex marriage. Chief Lunat...er "Chief Justice" Margaret Marshall actual wrote:

Granting such relief would create in effect a common-law or de facto quasi marital status that would promote litigation, permit judges to select from among marital benefits to which quasi marital couples might or might not be entitled, create uncertainty in the private as well as the public sphere about who is (or was) quasi married and for what purpose, and undercut the Legislature's role in defining the qualifications and characteristics of civil marriage.

You read that right. She says the court shouldn't "undercut the Legislature's role in defining...civil marriage."

Oh, you mean like, say, when the legislature passes laws defining marriage as one man and one woman, and when it repeatedly refuses to change those laws, and when the people keep elected representatives who oppose re-defining marriage--you mean THAT role, Judge Marshall?

Gee, why didn't you think of that in 2003?