To the editor: No doubt some will think I'm trying to make a stink by raising this issue, but the truth is, I'm genuinely curious about something. On what legal basis did Mayor Kevin Dumas and his same-sex partner wed in Massachusetts?

In November of 2003, the State Supreme Judicial Court ordered the Legislature to pass a law making legal the marriage of homosexuals one to another, but May of 2004 came and went, and the Legislature did not act to pass any such law.

The only reason homosexuals marry one another now is because Governor Romney ordered the state's 351 city and town clerks to issue to them marriage licenses.

Did his order carry the force of law?

Is there now some law on the books, as a result of the governor's order, that makes these marriages legal? The court has no constitutional jurisdiction to order the Legislature to make a law. That is not its role. It is certainly clear that the Legislature has every constitutional right to ignore the decision of the court, but can the governor make law for the books just by his order? I don't know the answers to these questions.

Did the governor violate his constitutional oath of office by ordering the clerks to do that which was not lawful in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?

Should judges be removed who violate their constitutional role by attempting to legislate from the bench? Does the rule of law mean anything anymore?

I am asking for the simple reason that I know what has happened, and I understand why it has happened, but I cannot understand, for the life of me, how it could have happened the way that it did, and be permitted to legally stand.

Can someone, more knowledgeable of things constitutional than I, please clarify this very strange situation?

I wish the mayor well, but until this can be explained within the framework of our state's constitution, I don't believe that any of these people are legally married under Massachusetts law, unless Gov. Romney can single-handedly create legal gay marriage by his fiat decree.

Harold Crowell, North Attleboro