Freedom to marry coming to Massachusetts

[avram]

From the NY Times, the Massachusetts supreme court has struck a blow for marriage rights:

Massachusetts' highest court ruled 4-3 Tuesday that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and gave lawmakers 180 days to fix the problem.

I’m pretty sure it’s the state constitution they’re referring to.

Vermont-style civil unions would not be enough, [Attorney Mary Bonauto] said, because that would fall short of marriage. A constitutional ban on gay marriage could not be enacted in Massachusetts until 2006 because it takes seveal years to change the state's constitution. [...]

But the issue may find a hostile audience in the Massachusetts Legislature, which has been considering a constitutional amendment that would legally define a marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The state's powerful Speaker of the House, Tom Finneran of Boston, has endorsed this proposal. [...]

A key group of state lawmakers also has recently been working behind the scenes to craft civil union legislation similar to the law passed in Vermont.