What did the SJC do in the Goodridge case?
• The SJC decided that there is no rational basis allowing the marriage statute to refuse same-sex couples from the civil institution of marriage. • Claiming the authority to “refine a common-law principle” and relying on a previous decision in the Halpern case decided by the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Canada, the four justices of the Massachusetts SJC claimed to reformulate the common-law meaning of marriage (“civil marriage”) to include same-sex couples. They said: “We construe civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others.” • and finally, they declared the marriage statute’s exclusion of same-sex couples to be unconstitutional which is all they had been asked to do by the plaintiffs (the same-sex couples), saying: “We declare that 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.” Goodr
