Straight couples are turning to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ­decision legalizing gay marriage as philosophical inspiration for their own secular weddings:

With a little deft editing, respecting both the listener’s patience and the layperson’s general disinterest in legal footnotes, a bride- or groom-to-be could stitch together some of [Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall]’s most elegant observations into an affirmative case for marriage that even the ­Westboro Baptist Church would not protest. As support for gay marriage increased, that softer packaging of [Goodridge v. Department of Public Health]—and the universal themes it advances—found a foothold in the weddings canon.