Martha B. Sosman, Mass. Supreme Court Judge Who Voted Against Gay Marriage, Dead At 56

Ian David

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Mon Mar-12-07 06:43 AM
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Martha B. Sosman, Mass. Supreme Court Judge Who Voted Against Gay Marriage, Dead At 56

Edited on Mon Mar-12-07 07:18 AM by IanDB1

How sad for her and her family that history will best remember her as the judge who opposed Marriage Equality.

AP - 3/11/2007 4:54 PM - Updated 3/11/2007 4:55 PM

BOSTON (AP) _ Martha B. Sosman, one of three Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges who voted against the landmark decision legalizing gay marriage in the state, has died, the court said Sunday. She was 56.

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Republican Gov. Paul Cellucci hailed Sosman as a ``conservative'' jurist when he appointed her to the high court as an associate justice in 2000.

In 2003, when a high court ruling made Massachusetts the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, Sosman wrote a strenuous dissent for the court's minority. In her opinion, she belittled the majority's advisory opinion, saying that it ``merely repeats the impassioned rhetoric'' of gay marriage advocates.

She said the argument to define gay partnerships as marriages versus civil unions was ``a squabble over the names to be used.''

In the majority opinion, Marshall chided Sosman, writing that she ``so clearly misses the point that further discussion appears to be useless.''

Gov. Deval Patrick will appoint a new justice to serve on the seven-judge panel.

More:
http://www.kotv.com/news/national/story/?id=122203

See also:

March 12, 2007
Mass. Supreme Court Judge Who Voted Against Gay Marriage Dies
http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2007/03/mass-supreme-court-judge-who-voted.html

See also:

Justice Sosman of the SJC dies at 56
Opposed legalizing same-sex marriage
By David Abel, Globe Staff | March 12, 2007

Justice Martha B. Sosman of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, whose 2000 appointment gave the state's highest court its first female majority, died Saturday of respiratory failure, court officials said.

The 56-year-old jurist had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005.

Justice Sosman, a former board member of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and a founding partner of an all-female law firm in Boston, surprised some in the legal community by joining two other justices in dissent against the landmark 2003 decision legalizing same-sex marriage. She wrote that the majority opinion "merely repeats the impassioned rhetoric" of same-sex marriage advocates.

"A quick review of the r�sum� makes people leap to various conclusions about me," she told the Globe three years ago. "The five-woman firm, the involvement with Planned Parenthood, I think added to this image that I was going to be this crusading feminist liberal whatnot, which is certainly not what I am."

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"I always respected the integrity she brought to the bench and her awesome intellectual power," said Ellen J. Zucker, a Boston lawyer who argued before her on multiple occasions. "But she had, in my experience, a narrower view of what the legal system could accomplish and what it is obliged to accomplish to secure people's rights. That said, I had enormous respect for her."

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/03/12/justice_sosman_of_the_sjc_dies_at_56/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+City%2FRegion+News