“It is time for President Bush to end his alliance with homophobic bigotry once and for all and speak out against the Republican Party’s hostile election year attempt to amend the United States Constitution to include a ban on gay marriage. Throughout our history, the Constitution has been amended to afford expanded rights to disenfranchised citizens, not to unfairly single out a particular group of Americans by limiting their rights.”

“Prince Charles is in the middle of a gay-sex scandal and media frenzy that just won’t quit.... Butler-turned-biographer Paul Burrell says he has an audiotape describing a sexual encounter between Prince Charles and a male aide.”

“We construe civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others. This reformulation redresses the plaintiffs’ constitutional injury and furthers the aim of marriage to promote stable, exclusive relationships.... 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. We vacate the summary judgment for the department. We remand this case to the Superior Court for entry of judgment consistent with this opinion. Entry of judgment shall be stayed for 180 days to permit the Legislature to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion.”