Case Name: Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2003) 440 Mass.

309

Facts:

 The case involved several same-sex couples, including plaintiffs Hillary and Julie Goodridge, David Wilson and
Robert Compton, Janet Peck and Carol Conklin, Heidi Norton and Gina Smith, and Maureen Brodoff and Ellen
Wade.
 These same-sex couples sought the legal right to marry in Massachusetts.
 The Massachusetts Department of Public Health, representing the Commonwealth, denied marriage licenses to
same-sex couples based on a statutory definition of marriage under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 207,
Section 1, which explicitly defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman.

Issue: The main issue before the court is whether the prohibition on same-sex marriage in Massachusetts violates the
state's constitution, specifically with respect to the guarantees of equality before the law and individual liberty.

Ruling: The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that the prohibition on same-sex marriage violates the
Massachusetts Constitution. The court held that same-sex couples have the same rights as opposite-sex couples to
marry and enjoy the benefits and protections that come with civil marriage. The court rejected the Department of Public
Health's arguments that marriage was primarily for procreation and child-rearing and that expanding marriage to same-
sex couples would undermine the institution of marriage.

Ratio Decidendi:
 In summary, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health established the legal precedent that denying same-sex
couples the right to civil marriage is unconstitutional under the Massachusetts Constitution, as it violates
principles of equality, individual autonomy, and the protection of individual rights and welfare. This case marked
a significant milestone in the recognition of same-sex marriage rights and served as a foundation for subsequent
legal developments on this issue in Massachusetts and beyond.

Connection to Legal Capacity Lesson: The case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health illustrates the
importance of legal capacity in the context of marriage rights. Legal capacity refers to an individual's ability to
exercise their legal rights and responsibilities. In this case, the court recognized that denying same-sex couples the
legal capacity to marry their chosen partners was a violation of their fundamental rights and liberties. The ruling
affirmed that all individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation, have the legal capacity to enter into marriage and
enjoy the associated legal, financial, and social benefits and obligations. It underscored the principle that the law
should treat all individuals equally and respect their autonomy to make choices about their personal relationships,
including the decision to marry. This case demonstrated how legal capacity plays a crucial role in ensuring that
individuals are not arbitrarily deprived of their rights and are treated with dignity and equality under the law.
Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2003) 440 Mass. 309 MARSHALL (FULL TEXT)

C.J. Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and
mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage
provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social
obligations. The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth
may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who
wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all
individuals. It forbids the creation of second class citizens. In reaching our conclusion we have given full deference to the
arguments made by the Commonwealth. But it has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying
civil marriage to same-sex couples. We are mindful that our decision marks a change in the history of our marriage law.
Many people hold deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions that marriage should be limited to the union of
one man and one woman, and that homosexual conduct is immoral. Many hold equally strong religious, moral, and
ethical convictions that same-sex couples are entitled to be married, and that homosexual persons should be treated no
differently than their heterosexual neighbors. Neither view answers the question before us. Our concern is with the
Massachusetts Constitution as a charter of governance for every person properly within its reach. “Our obligation is to
define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S. Ct. 2472, 2480 (2003)
(Lawrence), quoting Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 850 (1992). … Barred access to the
protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with
another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community’s most rewarding and cherished
institutions. That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and
equality under law. … The plaintiffs’ claim that the marriage restriction violates the Massachusetts Constitution can be
analyzed in two ways. Does it offend the Constitution’s guarantees of equality before the law? Or do the liberty and due
process provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution secure the plaintiffs’ right to marry their chosen partner? … We
begin by considering the nature of civil marriage itself. Simply put, the government creates civil marriage. … In a real
sense, there are three partners to every civil marriage: two willing spouses and an approving State. See DeMatteo v.
DeMatteo, 436 Mass. 18 , 31 (2002) (“Marriage is not a mere contract between two parties but a legal status from which
certain rights and obligations arise”); Smith v. Smith, 171 Mass. 404 , 409 (1898) (on marriage, the parties “assume*+
new relations to each other and to the State”). See also French v. McAnarney, 290 Mass. 544 , 546 (1935). While only
the parties can mutually assent to marriage, the terms of the marriage – who may marry and what obligations, benefits,
and liabilities attach to civil marriage – are set by the Commonwealth. Conversely, while only the parties can agree to
end the marriage (absent the death of one of them or a marriage void ab initio), the Commonwealth defines the exit
terms. See G. L. c. 208. Civil marriage is created and regulated through exercise of the police power. See Commonwealth
v. Stowell, 389 Mass. 171 , 175 (1983) (regulation of marriage is properly within the scope of the police power). “Police
power” (now more commonly termed the State’s regulatory authority) is an old fashioned term for the
Commonwealth’s lawmaking authority, as bounded by the liberty and equality guarantees of the Massachusetts
Constitution and its express delegation of power from the people to their government. In broad terms, it is the
Legislature’s power to enact rules to regulate conduct, to the extent that such laws are “necessary to secure the health,
safety, good order, comfort, or general welfare of the community” (citations omitted). Opinion of the Justices, 341 Mass.
760 , 785 (1960). [Note 12] See Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53 , 85 (1851). Without question, civil marriage
enhances the “welfare of the community.” It is a “social institution of the highest importance.” French v. McAnarney,
supra. Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to
the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, ensures that
children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks
important epidemiological and demographic data. Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on
those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a
highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. “It is an association
that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or
social projects.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven,
and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether
and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition. … For decades, indeed centuries, in much of this
country (including Massachusetts) no lawful marriage was possible between white and black Americans. That long
history availed not when the Supreme Court of California held in 1948 that a legislative prohibition against interracial
marriage violated the due process and equality guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment, Perez v. Sharp, 32 Cal. 2d
711, 728 (1948), or when, nineteen years later, the United States Supreme Court also held that a statutory bar to
interracial marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). [Note 16] As both Perez
and Loving make clear, the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one’s choice,
subject to appropriate government restrictions in the interests of public health, safety, and welfare. See Perez v. Sharp,
supra at 717 (“the essence of the right to marry is freedom to join in marriage with the person of one’s choice”). See also
Loving v. Virginia, supra at 12. In this case, as in Perez and Loving, a statute deprives individuals of access to an
institution of fundamental legal, personal, and social significance – the institution of marriage – because of a single trait:
skin color in Perez and Loving, sexual orientation here. As it did in Perez and Loving, history must yield to a more fully
developed understanding of the invidious quality of the discrimination. *Note 17+ … The individual liberty and equality
safeguards of the Massachusetts Constitution protect both “freedom from” unwarranted government intrusion into
protected spheres of life and “freedom to” partake in benefits created by the State for the common good. See Bachrach
v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 382 Mass. 268 , 273 (1981); Dalli v. Board of Educ., 358 Mass. 753 , 759 (1971). Both
freedoms are involved here. Whether and whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to
establish a family – these are among the most basic of every individual’s liberty and due process rights. See, e.g.,
Lawrence, supra at 2481; Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992); Zablocki v.
Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 384 (1978); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 152-153 (1973); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453
(1972); Loving v. Virginia, supra. And central to personal freedom and security is the assurance that the laws will apply
equally to persons in similar situations. “Absolute equality before the law is a fundamental principle of our own
Constitution.” Opinion of the Justices, 211 Mass. 618 , 619 (1912). The liberty interest in choosing whether and whom to
marry would be hollow if the Commonwealth could, without sufficient justification, foreclose an individual from freely
choosing the person with whom to share an exclusive commitment in the unique institution of civil marriage. …. The
department posits three legislative rationales for prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying: (1) providing a “favorable
setting for procreation”; (2) ensuring the optimal setting for child rearing, which the department defines as “a two-
parent family with one parent of each sex”; and (3) preserving scarce State and private financial resources. We consider
each in, turn. The judge in the Superior Court endorsed the first rationale, holding that “the state’s interest in regulating
marriage is based on the traditional concept that marriage’s primary purpose is procreation.” This is incorrect. Our laws
of civil marriage do not privilege procreative heterosexual intercourse between married people above every other form
of adult intimacy and every other means of creating a family. General Laws c. 207 contains no requirement that the
applicants for a marriage license attest to their ability or intention to conceive children by coitus. Fertility is not a
condition of marriage, nor is it grounds for divorce. People who have never consummated their marriage, and never
plan to, may be and stay married. See Franklin v. Franklin, 154 Mass. 515 , 516 (1891) (“The consummation of a marriage
by coition is not necessary to its validity”). *Note 22+ People who cannot stir from their deathbed may marry. See G. L. c.
207, s. 28A. While it is certainly true that many, perhaps most, married couples have children together (assisted or
unassisted), it is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting
of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage. [Note 23] Moreover, the Commonwealth affirmatively facilitates
bringing children into a family regardless of whether the intended parent is married or unmarried, whether the child is
adopted or born into a family, whether assistive technology was used to conceive the child, and whether the parent or
her partner is heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. [Note 24] If procreation were a necessary component of civil
marriage, our statutes would draw a tighter circle around the permissible bounds of nonmarital child bearing and the
creation of families by noncoital means. The attempt to isolate procreation as “the source of a fundamental right to
marry,” post at 370 (Cordy, J., dissenting), overlooks the integrated way in which courts have examined the complex and
overlapping realms of personal autonomy, marriage, family life, and child rearing. Our jurisprudence recognizes that, in
these nuanced and fundamentally private areas of life, such a narrow focus is inappropriate. The “marriage is
procreation” argument singles out the one unbridgeable difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and
transforms that difference into the essence of legal marriage. Like “Amendment 2″ to the Constitution of Colorado,
which effectively denied homosexual persons equality under the law and full access to the political process, the
marriage restriction impermissibly “identifies persons by a single trait and then denies them protection across the
board.” Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 633 (1996). In so doing, the State’s action confers an official stamp of approval on
the destructive stereotype that same-sex relationships are inherently unstable and inferior to opposite-sex relationships
and are not worthy of respect. *Note 25+ The department’s first stated rationale, equating marriage with unassisted
heterosexual procreation, shades imperceptibly into its second: that confining marriage to opposite-sex couples ensures
that children are raised in the “optimal” setting. Protecting the welfare of children is a paramount State policy.
Restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, however, cannot plausibly further this policy. … Moreover, the department
readily concedes that people in same-sex couples may be “excellent” parents. These couples (including four of the
plaintiff couples) have children for the reasons others do – to love them, to care for them, to nurture them. But the task
of child rearing for same-sex couples is made infinitely harder by their status as outliers to the marriage laws. … No one
disputes that the plaintiff couples are families, that many are parents, and that the children they are raising, like all
children, need and should have the fullest opportunity to grow up in a secure, protected family unit. Similarly, no one
disputes that, under the rubric of marriage, the State provides a cornucopia of substantial benefits to married parents
and their children. The preferential treatment of civil marriage reflects the Legislature’s conclusion that marriage “is the
foremost setting for the education and socialization of children” precisely because it “encourages parents to remain
committed to each other and to their children as they grow.” Post at 383 (Cordy, J., dissenting). In this case, we are
confronted with an entire, sizeable class of parents raising children who have absolutely no access to civil marriage and
its protections because they are forbidden from procuring a marriage license. It cannot be rational under our laws, and
indeed it is not permitted, to penalize children by depriving them of State benefits because the State disapproves of
their parents’ sexual orientation. … The department suggests additional rationales for prohibiting same-sex couples from
marrying, which are developed by some amici. It argues that broadening civil marriage to include same-sex couples will
trivialize or destroy the institution of marriage as it has historically been fashioned. Certainly our decision today marks a
significant change in the definition of marriage as it has been inherited from the common law, and understood by many
societies for centuries. But it does not disturb the fundamental value of marriage in our society. Here, the plaintiffs seek
only to be married, not to undermine the institution of civil marriage. They do not want marriage abolished. They do not
attack the binary nature of marriage, the consanguinity provisions, or any of the other gate-keeping provisions of the
marriage licensing law. 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. [Note 28] 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. *Note 29+ … The
department has had more than ample opportunity to articulate a constitutionally adequate justification for limiting civil
marriage to opposite-sex unions. It has failed to do so. The department has offered purported justifications for the civil
marriage restriction that are starkly at odds with the comprehensive network of vigorous, gender-neutral laws
promoting stable families and the best interests of children. It has failed to identify any relevant characteristic that
would justify shutting the door to civil marriage to a person who wishes to marry someone of the same sex. The
marriage ban works a deep and scarring hardship on a very real segment of the community for no rational reason. The
absence of any reasonable relationship between, on the one hand, an absolute disqualification of same-sex couples who
wish to enter into civil marriage and, on the other, protection of public health, safety, or general welfare, suggests that
the marriage restriction is rooted in persistent prejudices against persons who are (or who are believed to be)
homosexual. *Note 33+ “The Constitution cannot control such prejudices but neither can it tolerate them. Private biases
may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.” Palmore v. Sidoti, 466
U.S. 429, 433 (1984) (construing Fourteenth Amendment). Limiting the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil
marriage to opposite-sex couples violates the basic premises of individual liberty and equality under law protected by
the Massachusetts Constitution. …