No Disguises

Gays Have Full Marriage Rights, Massachusetts Court Says: "'The dissimilitude 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 opinion added: 'For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain.'

It also said: 'Barred access to the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions.'"

Wow, I am impressed. I never expected to hear a court say that these days. It's about time someone finally pegged Americans as hypocritical and discriminatory on this issue as they are.

"'That there may remain personal residual prejudice against same-sex couples is a proposition all too familiar to other disadvantaged groups,' the ruling said. 'That such prejudice exists in not a reason to insist on less than the constitution requires.'"