Outlaws on the bench.(Scan)

Regardless of how you feel about the recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court endorsing same-sex marriage, the key question is this: Who decides?

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves," said Thomas Jefferson. But there is nothing automatic about that. The Constitution established a government with three equal branches--the legislative, which makes the laws; the executive, which carries them out; and the judicial, which interprets them. No branch is subservient to the other.

The Constitution also guarantees that the states will have this republican form of government. But Massachusetts no longer does. The legislature went to the supreme court virtually begging to be allowed to pass a civil-unions law similar to that in Vermont. But the court ruled, by a four-to-three vote, that only full same-sex marriage would do--and the legislature had better be quick about it.

Not to be outdone, the city of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This was in direct violation of state law. It also violated the 2000 vote by 61 percent of Californians--an electoral landslide--in favor of the ballot proposition that defined marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman. Apparently voters' decisions and laws on the books are both floutable.

The reason some officials feel free to ignore democratic verdicts is because they know they can find a judge somewhere who will support their power play. Our self-anointed judicial elites believe they know better than the common people.

So after thousands of years of precedent, marriage is now being redefined, and the effects on the family, especially children, will be profound. Surely such a momentous change should be carefully considered. There should be input of religious and secular scholars, debate by the people until an agreement is reached, and then careful enactment by the people's representatives meeting in a legislature.

If that process had been followed for the abortion drama, there would be much less bitterness today. But the U.S. Supreme Court simply decided the matter itself. Having ...