Great news from Massachusetts

It was a close ruling - 4 to 3 - but Massachusetts' Supreme Court declared today that the state's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. The state now has 180 days to bring it's marriage laws in line with the ruling, and, if all goes well, after that gays should be able to start getting married.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts' highest court has ruled that the state must give gay and lesbian couples the legal rights of marriage, which could make the state the first in America to legalise gay marriage.

In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court said Massachusetts cannot deny civil marriage rights to two people of the same sex who wish to marry -- although it stopped short of ordering the state to start issuing marriage licenses.

"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," the court said on Tuesday, saying state law forbids the creation of second-class citizens.

Under the ruling, the state is required to issue civil marriage certificates, but no church or clergy are required to perform ceremonies for gays if they don't want to. This, of course, is as it should be. Marriage exists as two distinctly different entities - one being the civil marriage - the joining of two households in the eyes of the law, which is what the state governs. It is what grants the various legal benefits and obligations that come with being married, such as the ability to visit a spouse in the hospital and make decisions about their care, tax breaks and burdens that come from a combined household, the ability to share in work-related benefits - like health insurance - that are granted by businesses to their employee's spouses, obligations for mutual support and so on.

Marriage also exists as a spiritual institution - the joining of two souls in the eyes of the Divine (however that may be defined in any particular religion). What that consists of and what benefits and burdens it confers varies with each faith. This form of marriage is not regulated by the state, and no laws have - or should - be passed telling churches and other religious bodies which unions they must recognize or deny.

Opponents of gay marriage conflate the two - and claim that allowing civil marriages will somehow damage the institution of spiritual marriage, without stopping to realize that spiritual marriage isn't addressed by any laws, and that their religious bodies are still free to teach whatever beliefs they want to about the nature of spiritual marriage. Just as the fact that alcohol is legal does nothing to prevent various churches from teaching that drinking is wrong, making gay marriage legal won't keep any church from teaching that homosexuality is wrong, if that's what they believe, or that a gay marriage is not viewed as spiritually valid. Just as the legal availability of alcohol doesn't stop thousands - if not millions - of adults from not drinking for spiritual reasons, the legal availability of gay marriage won't stop thousands - if not millions - of heterosexual adults from not marrying same-sex partners.

In any event, I'm glad to see the state's Supreme Court making such a wise and just decision. Congrats to the future happily married gay couples in Massachusetts!