Ron’s Blog

Gay marriage: “I will survive”

Some decent news: Conservatives had taken the Massachusetts same-sex marriage ruling to the Supremes to overturn it, and they’ve turned down the request. Although they turned it down without comment (as is their way), the speculation is that it’s grounded in a lack of standing on the part of those who filed the suit. CNN’s coverage (Supreme Court declines Massachusetts same-sex marriage fight) cites

Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, [who] had told justices in court papers that the people who filed the suit have not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. “Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury,” she said.

If that’s right, one might wonder who the hell would conceivably have an actually injury coming from gay couples marrying?

I have a personal as well as political interest here, having married a guy in Massachusetts myself recently. OK, two of them. To each other. In my capacity as Man Of The Cloth, you know. As an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church, I’ve been marrying couples since the late 80’s. But a couple of months ago, I got to do my first legal gay marriage in Massachusetts. (It being Massachusetts, this took significant “Out of State Clergy” paperwork, starting with the “Procedure to Perform (Solemnize) Marriages for Non-Resident Clergy Member“.) Anyway, I’m kind of proud of this; as a dorky middle-aged straight married dad, I can use the cool points. And I don’t want them taken away. Or, my friends’ marriage dissolved, of course.