Congradulations to New Mexico, the following quote is from the court’s decision:
Prohibiting same-gender marriages is not substantially related to the governmental interests advanced by the parties opposing same-gender marriage or to the purposes we have identified. Therefore, barring individuals from marrying and depriving them of the rights, protections, and responsibilities of civil marriage solely because of their sexual orientation violates the Equal Protection Clause under Article II, Section 18 of the New Mexico Constitution. We hold that the State of New Mexico is constitutionally required to allow same-gender couples to marry and must extend to them the rights, protections, and responsibilities that derive from civil marriage under New Mexico law.
…of being the ONLY state to neither expressly allow or prohibit same-sex marriages in its laws or constitution.
And sort of the default I’d favor actually.
Didn’t our constitution also neither expressly allow nor prohibit it? The attempt to amend our constitution never made it to the ballot. And then the court decided it wasn’t expressly prohibited, and so allowed it, right?
Until the Goodrich decision I don’t believe any states found it worth mentioning as not having it was just assumed. After the decision some states freaked out and rushed to prohibit it. I think though there was more than lack of express prohibition the SJC was looking at. They read the opening statement that “All men are born free and equal…” as requiring it.
by our constitution, but I agree that one would not say it was “expressly allowed.” That, to me, suggests, that the constitution mentions equal access to marriage in so many words. It doesn’t, but it does provide for equal protection and due process. The court found that denial of a marriage license violated those guarantees.
Technically, it’s not a question of anything not expressly prohibited by the constitution being allowed, but that the marriage statute’s limitation of licenses to opposite-sex couples violated broad constitutional guarantees of equality before the law and liberty.
If I recall correctly, our “laws” – the marriage statute in effect in 2003 – restricted marriage access. New Mexico’s constitution and statutes were both silent on the gender of the marriage partners, so that’s the difference between here and there.