Noted without comment, part two

Except to say I have some good news and some bad news and I think you will know which is which.

First is the news that

[t]he village mayor who challenged New York law by attempting to marry gay couples last year will face trial, the state's highest court ruled Friday.

New Paltz, New York, Mayor Jason West faces 24 misdemeanor counts of violating the state's domestic relations law by marrying couples without licenses in late February 2004. He faces fines and up to a year in jail if convicted. ...

West has maintained he was upholding the gay couples' constitutional rights to equal protection - and thus his oath of office - by allowing them to wed in the Hudson Valley college town in late February 2004.

Meanwhile,

[i]n Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit by C. Joseph Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, to halt gay marriages in the state until the voters could decide on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The vote could happen in November 2006 at the earliest.

The Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court, became the first to authorize same-sex weddings with its landmark November 2003 ruling. The ruling took effect in May 2004.

Doyle had appealed to the full court after a single justice dismissed his claim last year,

but the Court rules that Justice Roderick Ireland was "correct and well within his discretion" in rejecting the motion. Ireland ruled that same-sex couples shouldn't be denied the right to marry based on the mere possibility that voters would approve the amendment.