'They do': Been busy over at the Herald and haven't had time to post on the big 'They do' story, i.e. the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision on gay marriage rights. ... Two minds: I'm ecstatic and depressed. Ecstatic because the decision is philosophically right. Depressed because, on a gut instinct level, I feel there were some headline-hunting, I'm-making-history judges who subverted the democratic, legislative process just as it was about to work. The overwhelming evidence shows that Americans (and the good citizens of the Commonwealth) were moving toward acceptance of gay rights -- and gay marriages. Poll after poll showed this, despite the two-steps-forward/one-step-back gyrations of the polls. We were moving ahead. The court jumped into the middle of this debate/process/evolution, as if it couldn't resist claiming credit for itself, as if it couldn't, for egotistical reasons, let the drama play out. It had to be the star of the show. ... Now we're going to be arguing for years if this was rammed down our throats via the courts. This is one of those issues where I feel like a true moderate conservative (hurray for the decision -- the moderate side) but shudder at how it was achieved (yet more judicial overreaching -- the conservative side.) ...

All that said, I hope -- though I'm not counting to ten with a plastic bag over my head -- that lawmakers act in a reasonable way. Hub Blog will give double bonus points if they find a way to make the decision legal and acceptable -- while humiliating the pompous bozos on the court majority.  ¶ 12:30 AM