Word: sosman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Hasn’t the legislature already drawn that line and drawn it at logs?” Sosman asked Cohen...
Justice Martha B. Sosman suggested that because the Massachusetts State Legislature passed the law requiring university police departments to publish daily crime logs, it should be up to the legislature to resolve this dispute...
...dissent, Justice Martha Sosman pointed out that even if Massachusetts allowed gay marriages, those marriages would still not be fully equal since "differences in Federal law and the law of other States will frustrate the goal of complete equality." What she meant is that even after Zach and Brad marry in Massachusetts, the couple will not be married in, say, Alaska, which has a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages. (In all, 39 states have laws or amendments restricting marriage to straight couples.) What's more, the couple will not be married in the eyes of the Federal Government, which...
...Sosman wrote that "once the euphoria of [the case] subsides, the reality of the still less than truly equal status of same-sex couples will emerge." With all the practical differences between straight and gay unions, she argued, "it is eminently reasonable to give a different name to the legal status being conferred on same-sex couples by the proposed bill." But the majority dismissed that reasoning. It countered that federal and other states' laws were "irrelevant ... Courts define what is constitutionally permissible, and the Massachusetts Constitution does not permit this type of labeling...
...state's constitution, gay people do not have the right to make burial arrangements for their partners. The generally civil members of the Massachusetts court were barely civil to one another by the time they issued their second opinion. In her ruling, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said Justice Sosman, who had dissented, "so clearly misses the point that further discussion appears to be useless." It is a small sign that tempers are likely to flare when the national debate begins...