Bush has already commented on the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that struck down that state’s same-sex marriage ban:

“Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman,” Bush said in a statement released shortly after he arrived in London for a state visit. He said the ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court “violates this important principle.” “I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage,” he said. Salon coverage

Tom DeLay (R-Tx-Weasel) had this to say, where (unlike Bush) he openly advocates a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage:

When you have a runaway judiciary, as we obviously have, that has no consideration for the Constitution of the United States, then we have available to us through that Constitution (a way) to fix the judiciary.” Ibid

Huh? Where in our Constitution does it deal with marriage, exactly?

The hardline conservatives would have us all rally against gay marriage, because it’s apparently very important that we control what other people do. I’m deeply confused by this; it seems to me to be a blatent case of unequal access to government services for vague and artificial reasons. I’ve no idea how a heterosexual couple might suffer if their neighbors were a married gay couple; to deny them that is simply absurd. Not only that, shouldn’t governmental regulation of marriage fall outside the party-of-small-government’s jurisdiction?

Fortunately, the Massachusetts court majority agrees with me, and not with Antonin “If it were up to me, sodomy would still be a crime” Scalia, et. al.:

Recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of the same sex will not diminish the validity or dignity of opposite-sex marriage, any more than recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of a different race devalues the marriage of a person who marries someone of her own race. If anything, extending civil marriage to same-sex couples reinforces the importance of marriage to individuals and communities. That same-sex couples are willing to embrace marriage’s solemn obligations of exclusivity, mutual support, and commitment to one another is a testament to the enduring place of marriage in our laws and in the human spirit. Ibid

Salon has additional coverage as well, focusing in particular on how gay marriage may well become the major domestic issue of the ’04 Presidential race.