So, I’m tired of all the infighting. I support both gay marriage and health care as a basic right that belongs in our constitution. I do not support attacking one right at the cost of the other, nor should anyone else. Instead of infighting, we should be working together in our common, progressive cause.
Here’s my suggestion: banning marriage equality is a dead issue. Let’s put the dead issue where it should be: last on the legislative agenda. The voters have decided again and again that by reelecting every pro-gay marriage candidate in office that’s been up for reelection. They’ve also answered by voting out opponents of marriage equality. Such a proposal is probably something a lot of state reps and senators could get behind because the rhetoric is quite good. They need only say they want to get to real issues, not hot button issues, and a majority of the populace will agree.
Let’s all start calling our elected officials and see what they think about this proposal. Then let’s keep track of what they say (you can start by writing a reply with what they say). The odds are stacked against us, but that’s no different than the odds the health care lobby is already facing. At the very least, we can build public momentum this way. At the very least, we can stop the divisions going on. At the very least, large swaths of people will stop being turned away from talk of putting certain rights at risk out of some respect to procedure (imagine if Ghandi felt that way?).
This is a way to actually work together instead of tearing each other apart. Because I care deeply about these issues, I want to see a common resolution that won’t risk my rights any more so than they currently are – and will enshrine the right to proper health care for everyone in Massachusetts.
raweel says
“So, I’m tired of all the infighting. I support both gay marriage and health care as a basic right that belongs in our constitution. I do not support attacking one right at the cost of the other, nor should anyone else. Instead of infighting, we should be working together in our common, progressive cause.”
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You don’t seem to recognize progressives and others who disagree with your assumption that the constitution is the appropriate place to address either issue. Many people (including progressives) have a problem dealing with policy matters in the constitution.
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On the marriage issue: I support gay marriage and agree with most aspects of Goodridge, but I would be opposed to a constitutional amendment that guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. It goes without saying that I oppose a same-sex marriage ban written into the constitution.
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On the health issue: the same reluctance applies to enshrine policy matters into the constitution. Apart from this reluctnace I am saddened by the fact that the Health Care Amendment people did not seek a legislative amendment, instead opting for citizen initiative. Compromise and concession can create more inclusive legislation. Honoring the democratic process should be as important as democratic rhetoric.
annem says
“Honoring the democratic process should be as important as democratic rhetoric.”
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A strong and reasoned rationale was put forward here for using the citizen initiative process.
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It appears a choice has been made to ignore the facts.
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There’s much good work to do; let’s get on with it.
raweel says
It still appears the citizen initiative process was chosen to avoid any legislative compromise. No doubt this was a strong rationale from an anyone who wanted to avoid the possiblity of concession to any competing interests, including health care providers or employers. I detect more than a whiff of demogoguery.
bwroop0323 says
Raweel-
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I apologize for not getting back to your question sooner. The postings have been a bit overwhelming.
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The Health Care Amendment sponsors concluded at the outset that a Legislature that had been unwilling to consider ANY legislative proposal for covering everyone since 1988 was unlikely to produce a majority in favor of making it their constitutional duty to enact legislation to achieve that goal. We could have been wrong. But all the legislators I spoke with felt that was the proper conclusion.
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We also felt that the cost of inaction and delay in terms of unecessary deaths, needless suffering and money wasted required acting as soon as possible.
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The Legislature had its input before the first vote and we compromised, accepting the “voter approval” language they wanted. The ConCon rules do not permit further amendment. The question is only on whether to adopt the amendment as is. This part of the process is the same whether an amendment is a legislative one or filed by the people.
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The Amendment demands that laws be enacted – something that happens only after extensive negotiation and compromise. It demands, therefore, that people with different views come together and decide how best to ensure everyone access to affordable, comprehensive, equitably funded health and mental health care coverage.
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Assuming that this year’s reforms do not accomplish this goal there will be many negotiations and many compromises over the coming years. The Amendment is designed to make sure those negotiations and compromises come sooner rather than later – not to stifle them – and to make sure that while the debate continues we don’t lose this year’s hard won reforms.
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Barbara Waters Roop, PhD, JD
Health Care Amendment Campaign
raweel says
Thank you for your reply and your hard work. Though I don’t support this Amendment, something good is bound to emerge from these efforts!
demolisher says
How can health care be a right?
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Health care is a set of products and services offered by trained professionals in exchange for money. At best, this could be considered an entitlement.
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Rights include such things as free speech, bear arms, free association, due process, etc. None of these fundamentally require services or goods or money from others.
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Maybe people have a right not to be constitutionally bound to produce or procure goods and services?
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Demo
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annem says
to” “How can health care be a right?”
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Yeah, it’s an obscure and meaningless document that was just rammed through the international community and has no weight and no merits, but it does provide a shred of evidence that at least some people believe that health care is a right.
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then it falls to each country, their leaders and their citizens, to establish and uphold the social mechanisms to respect and fulfill that right. Creating a constitutional guarantee for “comprehensive affordable and equitably financed health insurance” as a legal right is a way to get that job done.
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And speaking as a health care professional myself (a nurse for 14 years) and the director of the Alliance to Defend Health Care that is a group that represents thousands of front-line hc professionals in the state who advocate for the right to affordable care for all, we adamently and vigourously disagree with the notion that health care is a commodity to be reduced to a transaction of payment for goods and services.
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As is detailed in the Call To Action: For Our Patients Not For Profits, we disagree that health care should be treated as a privilege for some and not a right for all who need it.
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These are the reasons we helped to launch the health care amendment and are now one of the 130 organizations across the state joining together with volunteer citizen activists to work for passage of the health care amendment. Please join this historic effort.
demolisher says
I find it hard to detect if you are opening with cynicism and sarcasm or not (I daresay the left tends to love that stuff) but in any case, I’d never heard of such a document so thanks.
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Whether people believe it is a right or not is really not my concern – whether it could possibly be a right is more where I’m coming from. I think rights means what they mean, and now certain political forces in the world are expanding the definition of rights to include entitlement. I think thats a shame, as it dilutes the meaning and sanctity of rights, and also creates a bit of a monster.
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I’m also mildly surprised that you would think it the duty of the US to conform to a declaration created by some international consortium or other.
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Anyway, as a 14 year health care professional, if you ever get stranded on a desert isle with 20 unemployed people in ill health, you’re gonna have your hands full taking care of their rights.
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I’ll check out the document.
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Demo
annem says
See preface and Article 25 for health care language:
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Article 25 (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
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The Preamble is relevent to our current effort here in MA so I’ll offer it too (BTW this document was created/grew out of post WWII and the holocaust):
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PREAMBLE :
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Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
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Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has beep proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
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Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
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Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
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Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
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Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
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Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
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Now, Therefore, …
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p.s. Eleanor Roosevelt was on the working committee that created said document.
demolisher says
the premise of people being assigned rights to wealth, goods, services, whatever turns my stomach. However, I thank you for pointing out this document to me and I’ll definitely check it out.
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FDR is not exactly a hero in my book, as you might imagine.
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D
demolisher says
Should they have said a man and a man?
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đŸ™‚
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The whole thing strikes me as preposterous. Why do people feel that its so important to tell everyone else how to live and how to run their societies?
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On the other hand, if you strongly support this, do you support GWB’s aggression in the name of promoting these rights in, e.g. Afghanistan?
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D
raweel says
Everyone recognizes that jobs increase well-being and makes our communities stronger. Why not create a constitutional amendment that gives everyone a right to gainful employment?
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Maternity leave is an important benefit that would tend to lower infant mortality. Why not make sure the constitution recognizes a bullet-proof right to maternity leave?
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Education is important in raising our standard of living and in giving people independence. Why not create a constitutional right to education that would make sure that education spending is never cut?
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Let’s start gathering the signatures now! The people have a right to have their voices heard over the corporate interests that control these services!
stomv says
Rights include such things as free speech, bear arms, free association, due process, etc. None of these fundamentally require services or goods or money from others.
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How about the right to an attorney?
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Note: I asked a very similar question months ago, and that was the counterpoint provided to me.
demolisher says
thats a great counterpoint, really!
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I guess its because rights tend to be “from opression” by the govt, and an attorney is your defense against getting wrongfully screwed into jail or worse? Because it is a defense of liberty in this sense?
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You don’t get a right to an attorney unless the govt is fixing to take away one or more of your other rights, and during such a transaction, you get the right not to get bulldozed.
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I can see it.
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Nice one though
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D
annem says
Ryan, I couldn’t agree with you more. Let’s do it!
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As well as calling our own leges on this and postng their answers here, as you suggest, WE HAVE A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TODAY to “flush out” Travaglini on the devisive “leadership” tactics that caused our present “How-de-do” dilemma.
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Tonight at 7pm Emily Rooney, the host of Channel 2’s Creater Boston show, will have Travaglini on to talk about the future of gay marriage in MA.
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Send an email to the show to let her know that we the public know that the health care amdendment is being killed very disingenuously by leadership by intentionally placing it AFTER gay marriage in the ConCOn agenda line-up; that the citizens health care amendment is item #3 and that the gay marriage ban item is #20, for heavens sake!!
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The HC amendment ALREADY got its first of two required ConCon votes in the last session. Doesn’t it deserve to be at the TOP OF THE ConCon LINE UP, not placed after the gay marriage item? (which was done to give them cover for not taking it up, and to artificaially pit 2 human rights issues against each other. Despicable.). Please take 2 minutes to email Greater Boston and suggest that this question be posed to Sen Travaglini on the show.
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On the “Contact” page you’ll see a field “Your reason for contacting us” and can select “Suggestion for upcoming show” and suggest that aemily pose this question to Trav. as fairdeal put it so well, it’s time for a “Roll Call on the Truth”.
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Emily Rooney might well pose this question to Trav if she hears from enough members of the public. And maybe she would anyway just from learning the facts, especially as they have been outline so clearly in today’s Globe Op-Ed column by Scot Lehigh
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excerpt:
“… The Health Care for Massachusetts Campaign has collected some 66,000 signatures for an amendment to guarantee affordable, comprehensive healthcare for all state residents. That amendment got 153 legislative votes in July 2004.
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But the legislative leadership was skeptical of the measure. And so, in July, the Legislature sent the healthcare amendment to a so-called study committee, a long-established method of scuttling something without killing it outright.
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That amendment, too, deserved an up-or-down vote. Had it received one, it would likely be heading for the 2008 ballot….”
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Please take 2 minutes to email Greater Boston now and suggest that this vital issue be put beofre Sen Travaglini for his response on the show tonight.
sabutai says
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Whoa! Let’s say there’s a hypothetical district where 85% of the voters are against marriage equality in a campaign poll. They elect a pro-equality incumbent by 65%-35% because her opponent was…less than desirable. Does that mean the voters of their district give up the right to have an opinion on the issues? This seems to expect that citizens should reduce themselves to single-issue voters.
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Marriage equality isn’t a dead issue. If it were, we wouldn’t be reading reams of posts and comments about it. It’s clearly alive, and it certainly won’t die if it’s killed off in the dead of the procedural night.
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I will agree that moving the item to the end of the agenda rather than stalling it out does give a slightly thicker patina of legitimacy to this move. But in the end, it’s still playing fast and loose with the democratic intent of citizen initiatives.
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As to the Gandhi metaphor. What the Lege is considering is the equivalent of Gandhi and his followers sneaking into the ocean in the dead of night, making the salt, distributing it on the downlow, and then being claiming credit if someone found out.
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Gandhi worked in the daylight so everyone could see justice being done. So should the Legislature.
ryepower12 says
Sabutai, your point is completely moot: what you brought up is no different than any other issue. I was angry with the fact that my state representative sit back while the town next door to mine got almost a million more in added state aid because of the budget surplus, while my town got franks and beans – while both towns are almost exactly the same in socio-economic make up. I even wrote a letter to the editor on the topic.
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Yet, I still happily voted for him and I think he’s one of the best state reps on Beacon Hill (one of the few who refused to sell out to Thomas Finneran – at great personal cost, losing his committee chairmanship).
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So, my point still rings true. People have had the chance – over and over again – to replace their pro-gay marriage representatives and senators, yet have voted them in EVERY TIME. Not a SINGLE one of them have lost reelection. Your words have no power because they ring hollow.
bwroop0323 says
Ryan-
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There are many grassroots organizations, like Neighbor to Neighbor and the Coalition for Social Justice, that focus on electing progressive candidates to office. They and others belong to a political committee called the Mass Alliance and which includes MassEquality. Support for marriage equality has been one of the key qualifying issues. They have replaced legislators like Rep. Travis with folks who will vote to support marriage equality. MassEquality terrified Rep. Rogers, a staunch gay marriage ban advocate, into flipping his position when they threatened to run a pro-marriage candidate against him. Those examples are from this year. There are many others from previous years. Rep. Dorcena Forry, Rep. John Keenan, Sen. Augustus, etc.
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There is no question that the House is more conservative than the population at large. Districts are gerrymandered. But thanks to the hard work of many groups, the House in particular is becoming more progressive on this and many other issues.
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We should thank them all.
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Barbara Roop
ryepower12 says
That’s exactly what’s frustrated me over these posts. We’ve had a good thing going for several years now and made a lot of progress in electing Democrats we can be proud of. To attack each other now is to risk the future.
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The health care amendment was only sent to committee in July by about 15-20 votes. That’s not an insurmountable amount of people to replace over the next two election cycles… and if people get scared because we threaten primary races against the people who voted the wrong way on this issue in the summer, the rest will come around without having to unseat them.
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We can do this, but we need to work with each other. We need to not back stab each other over any percieved conflicts.