Golldarn Activist Judges
From CNN:

The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a dispute over same-sex marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions.

Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage. They declined, without comment.

In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.

Critics of the November 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts argue that it violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of a republican form of government in each state. They lost at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

And from the NYTimes:

Gay rights groups said the decision cleared the way for suits in lower courts around the country seeking to establish or expand same-sex marriage. Their socially conservative opponents said the court's decision not to take on the issue would add momentum to the political battles to settle the matter at the polls, where the overwhelming success of measures forbidding same-sex marriages in 13 states has indicated that the issue is a big winner for conservatives.

[...]

But opponents of same-sex marriage said an even bigger court battle loomed as gay men and lesbians who married in Massachusetts sought to force other states to recognize their marriage licenses under the full-faith and credit or equal protection clauses of the Constitution. Those cases would return the issues to the federal courts and potentially the Supreme Court with arguments it is much more likely to consider, lawyers on both sides say.

Opponents of same-sex marriage said the Supreme Court's tacit refusal to contradict the Massachusetts court would only help their campaigns against "judicial tyranny" at the polls by helping the passage of amendments blocking same-sex marriage. Karl Rove, the top political adviser to President Bush, has said the White House will continue to push for a federal amendment in Mr. Bush's second term.

And finally, comment from Daily Kos:

(L)et's shake up tactics. The conservative bigotted position is untennable. It has no basis in fact or reason. Arguments against gay marriage are predicated entirely, 100 percent, on emotion. And the vehicle for those emotional appeals are the word "marriage". A mere semantic.

Or it would be, if government rights and benefits weren't predicated on that single word.

So let's gift the word "marriage" to the churches, grant themexclusive use, and get the government out of the realm of "marriage". That way, churches could define whatever it was they called "marriage" (you know, that thing with a 50 percent success rate), and leave the government to certify legal "unions" -- you know, those things between people who love each other.

That way, the churches could find ways to really save marriage, by figuring out how to keep their flocks from divorcing, cheating and abusing their spouses.