I’ve stayed out of the whole anti-marriage-amendment “process” brouhaha, because my feelings were deeply conflicted: I strongly support marriage equality, but I also support the Health Care Amendment. I also believe in the rule of law. So now that the SJC has found that yes, the legislature has avoided its constitutional obligations, and is legally required by law to vote on the amendment, I have to support that too — even though the SJC offers no remedy (“mandamus”, so I read). The legislature should vote, and it should vote no on this misanthropic proposed amendment.
Let’s retain some perspective: The rancor on this site has concerned one particular legislative tactic to preserve equality of marriage. The tactic has 1. been found to be illegal, and 2. has on its way crushed a critical amendment (Health Care), proposed by folks that are largely ideological allies of equal marriage, and which had good prospects of passage and helping people in their real lives — unlike the anti-marriage amendment, which faced rather dim prospects for passage.
Now, any legislator who voted not to vote on the amendment may reasonably “call my bluff” and wonder if I would really support an anti-marriage, pro-process candidate vs. a pro-marriage legislator who voted to adjourn. I can’t imagine I would. So I’m not going to support using the only remedy suggested by the SJC — the ballot box.
Will people who aren’t in my ideological orbit be moved by the SJC’s finding that the legislature has abrogated its duties? Will this be a real motivating factor against pro-marriage, pro-adjournment legislators? I don’t claim to know. To mostly-apathetic “soft supporters” of marriage equality, this may not go over well. Or maybe they don’t care enough to be angry. The latter seems more likely to me, but what do I know?
In any event, it’s not just marriage equality that we’re after, although that’s an important part: It’s a culture that behaves in a fair and civilized way towards gays and lesbians. If we have that, we win any eventual ballot vote on marriage anyway. If that’s what it comes to, I look forward to the next couple of years of trying to win hearts and minds, rather than endless legal battles and legislative sparring. We’re going to put this threat to equality away for good, sooner or later. I’d rather do it with no tinct of impropriety, since we deserve to win outright, fairly, and on the merits.
2. has on its way crushed a critical amendment (Health Care), proposed by folks that are largely ideological allies of equal marriage, and which had good prospects of passage and helping people in their real lives — unlike the anti-marriage amendment, which faced rather dim prospects for passage.
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HC amendment: seems to me that in threads past, there was lots of agreement that the HC amendment as it stands now (Finnerinated) is actually bad law. The heart is in the right place, but the verbage is not up to snuff.
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Anti-marriage amendment: it’s prospects for passage were anything but grim. That is why the legislators did the procedural dance, after all. It is certain to pass if voted on Jan 2nd.
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Charley, I am glad you are willing to work on winning hearts and minds for some future vote on marriage. But I and innumerable others have been doing that work now for years, and we’re sick and tired of it and want to stop now. Two more years of this crap is two years too much longer. Please do not encourage an outcome on the 2nd that will bog us all down with unnecessary work with no guarantee whatsoever that we’ll prevail in Nov ’08.
I’ve won my hearts and I’ve won my minds and quite frankly, I’m tired. I just came back from the Holiday spent with family in Colorado and every blasted minute of it there was a little voice in my head saying “you’re not married here, if something happens to your husband you better have that medical proxy handy” and it was psychically draining to say the least. I thank the SJC for their Goodridge ruling and respect their ruling re: the legislature’s procedural maneuvers and I want to support order but I have literally never been more politically challenged in my life. I am sick and tired of justifying my humanity to people I don’t know. All you sympathetic heterosexuals out there who are so sure that if a vote is in our future that civil rights will win out over ignorance have no idea what we go through. I am discriminated against on a startlingly regular basis, right here in good ol’ Boston MA USA; and I run in a very liberal circle. Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it’s shockingly overt but it has ceased to be surprising and it has only gotten worse since May, 2004. My personal conflict on this issue is too difficult to pick apart, so respectfully, I abstain. Whatever happens happens and come November, 2008 I will finally either breathe easy or move to Spain (and that is no hyperbole). Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to do my part as best I can, but at some point we all deserve a little piece of mind. Today, when I was on a full flight from Colorado to Boston and the flight attendant tried to separate my husband and I so a straight family (with no small children) could all sit in the same row and I had to explain to her that we were also a family and (only after a dose of indignancy on her part) that I wasn’t moving unless she took me off the plane I didn’t have that piece of mind. I’ve lost all objectivity. I trust our legislature to do the right thing, I just no longer know what that is.
My own Senator said in the paper today that he would vote no if he gets the chance. Not giving him that chance will have new petitions out in a heartbeat.
I don’t think the anti-gay crowd is going to give up whether they lose due to a vote or lack of one.
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PP, you’ve said before that if the legislature fails to vote, you’d sign on another petition in a heartbeat, but that if the legislature votes it down, you’d be content.
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You are in an extreme minority on that, I fear. I think most anti-gay marriage advocates will continue their advocation no matter what happens on Tuesday.
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Which is not to say I don’t respect your position; I do, but I think you’re being unrealistic in saying that a vote would end this. It won’t.
The legislature has already voted on the issue and rejected a legislator sponsored amendment. So there has been a vote on the issue. The citizen petition is essentially a second bite at the apple (with a lower threshold). The anti-marriage people couldn’t get a majority, so they want to get in through the back door. So, obviously, a vote of the legislature is not enough to stop them from trying and trying again. So your quote is really irrelevant.
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Do you mean (as you have argued previously) a vote of the people would end this? So Massachusetts would have the distinction of being the first place to allow a citizens vote that would take away existing rights?
…not the bastardized version that Finneran allowed the Lege to vote on – the one that even its sponsor, Phil Travis, voted against. You know that, Laurel.
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The ani-marriage people had a long lesson to learn. They originally thought that having a LEGISLATOR sponsor the petition would be a GOOD thing, not realizing that all it did was expose thier wording to tampering and a higher vote threshhold. They wised up, did a citizen petition, and that’s where we are now.
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When I say a vote, the ideal would be to allow the people to vote. You are THAT certain that a state which just elected Deval Patrick, that reelects Ted Kennedy, etc., is so bigoted that it would vote this down? How can you cope with knowing that the entire electorate will defy you in this way? Sooooo much easier to prevail by trickery, and hope that the other side doesn’t use your own tricks as precedent against you someday…
that got amendded into an untenable form by the legislature. I thought Finneran was responsible for that, but I may be wrong on the ‘who’ part. you’re right, there was a Finnerinated SSM amendment which was defeated, but that was not what I was talking about. See me original post above.
At least the legislators are up front about not voting. As opposed to VoteOnMarriage, which still crows about the “170,000” signatures gathered, sidestepping the fact that thousands of those were fraudulently collected and/or created by some paid signature gatherers. Scurrilous – the perfect word!
Peter, in my experience, this is no guarantee. I have had the extremely sad experience of watching my neighbors in my old home state and others in the region vote that I am not a worthy full human being who should be protected by civil law. Try to imagine how pschically damaging that is. My old state has a long history of Democratic governance.
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You would not believe how squeamish people are on this subject, and MANY still have not bothered to think about it. A common knee jerk in that situation is to be conservative and stick with heterosexual privilege. I have no illusions that MA will automatically vote against the amendment if it gets to the ballot. Only one state has voted down such an amendment so far.
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On a final note, although Patrick is vocally against the amendment, Sen. Kerry, is vocally against SSM in MA. He campaigned on that stance. He’s been voted in here umpteen times. WHat shall we make of that? Anything? Nothing? Cancells out Kennedy?
Peter,
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First, I am not sure whether the amendment would pass a popular vote or not. You can never tell with such things. Hell, look at the dramatic swing in regarding the wine amendment this last election from what seemed like inevitable passage to huge defeat. Elections are unpredictable that way.
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Second, regardless of whether the amendment would pass or not, there is the underlying issue that Massachusetts would be the first place ever to allow a vote that would take away existing rights from a group of people. That is a pretty scary precedent and I do not believe such a vote is really appropriate. Think of it this way, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loving versus Virginia, opposition to inter-racial marriage was over 80% nationally (significantly higher than the average national opposition currently to same-sex marriage). Would it have been appropriate to have a vote on inter-racial marriage post-Loving? It’s pretty clear that the decision would effectively have been overturned by the voters. Would that result have been ok?
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Third, on a related note and as been touched on here, allowing this amendment to go to a vote would unleash a terribly nasty campaign. If people thought the amount spent on the wine amendment was a lot and that the Healy ads were nasty, that will pale in comparison to what would happen over the next two years regarding equal marriage. As a gay man, I don’t really relish the idea of being attacked on a daily basis by interest groups from outside the state. As a citizen of the Commonwealth, I do not relish the idea of a divisive fight taking place here, financed by outside groups, that sours the political and general climate. I think the Worcester assault interest (regardless of whether you belive a wrong occurred or not) is a good example of what will start to happen much more frequently and on a wider scale (and to a much worse degree).
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Peter, if you are so sure this amendment will fail a popular vote, is it really worth putting the Commonwealth and its citizens through that? In other words, if there is no chance that equal marriage will be overturned, is the symbolic damage of the legislature killing this amendment in violation of the state consitution greater than the actual damage that will occur by allowing a vote to take place?
It is easy to say “If that’s what it comes to, I look forward to the next couple of years of trying to win hearts and minds” but I think it’s morally degrading. And I know that this issue has been talked about time and time again here, but this issue should NEVER be voted on. Why should a taxpaying, law abiding segment of the population have to go through an election where other people can vote on whether Dan and Steve, who love each other, can have the legal recognition that Sue and Ken already have? Why does anyone have the right to vote on these marriages? Do you think the people should have had the right to vote on whether blacks and whites are allowed to marry?
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On another note, Deval Patrick spent 18 months building a grassroots network to become Governor. Do you have any idea how much outside money is going to flow into Massachusetts from the Christian Right and the Republicans because of this issue?
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You neglected to mention how the LGBT population is forced into being verbally attacked for two more years by the supporters of this nasty amendment.
BB, I do think about it. I don’t like it. And I wish the lege didn’t have those 50 votes. I wish the 2004 SJC decision was the last word. I wish the anti-equality folks would find something productive to do, or at least a more benign hobby than bash my gay friends, neighbors, and relatives and try to take away their rights.
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But that’s not the world we live in. We’ve got to deal with reality as it is, and the law as it is. “Why does anyone have the right”? Because the law says if the homophobes get their signatures and 50 votes in the lege, they get it. (And if the law doesn’t matter … then why is having legal equality important?)
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So we’ve just got to win on the merits. In the long run, there’s no other choice anyway.
But unfortunately for people like me, it will never be over. Yeah, you think that in two years time if the lege votes and it goes to the voters and the voters vote it down (wow, that’s a lot of “votes” there) that it will be over. But it won’t. They will come up with some other thing and another amendment. These people will not be happy until gay people have no rights what so ever.
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To think that it will be over in Nov. 2008 is a bit naive. Not a great analogy but look what’s happened with Roe Vs. Wade and LGBT people will continue to suffer the brunt of it all.
The country was moving in the direction of legalization before Roe, but the court case short circuited the political process. I think that is why the issue lives on and on and on. Please also note that the right announced by the courts in 1973 has steadily eroded ever since, and has a not-insignificant liklihood of being reversed outright.
because the legislature had refused action for years on anything even so flimsey as dp rights. how long would you tell a minority to wait for their rights before taking the issues to the courts? would you personally be willing to remain unmarried along with all those gay folks for as long as it took?
I would love to know how many straight allies would be willing to wait until their same sex counterparts are allowed equal access to marriage. Beside Brad and Angelina and Charleze and her beau I think the number is quite small. If its right two years from now, its right now.
The law also says that an ballot initiative is not supposed to be allowed which over-rides a court decision, but somehow, this one was allowed.
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In this case, the law doesn’t matter. People’s lives are at stake, and it seems like there are a lot of “liberal” folks who cluck about following “process” correctly, as if the process itself was more important then the people it is supposed to serve.
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You’ll make sure process is followed, and we go to a vote that we are sure to lose, and I’m sure you will act shocked, just shocked, at the bigotry of your fellow citizens as they vote to take away civil rights. Maybe you’ll even put a pro-marriage yard sign up, but in the end, it’s not your rights that are threatened, and, well, process has been followed….just like it was in Florida in 2000 and many other places throughout history.
You think? That’s not what I hear. Back this up.
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Btw, process was not followed in Florida in 2000. People had their votes thrown away.
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Again, if following the law doesn’t matter, then why does legal marriage matter?
that is more or less what Arline Isaacson is quoted as saying in today’s Globe:
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I think she’s wrong and that it is exactly the worst thing to say under the circumstances.
Or fail to signal, or fail to come to a complete stop at a stop sign? Do you ever jaywalk? Perhaps you don’t, but many people do, and I don’t think that means they feel that laws in general don’t matter.
If this thing goes to a vote in the legislature, supporters of same sex marriage can only hope that enough legislators have the spine to vote it down in the face of what is sure to be a massive yes vote campaign. If it get to the point that it faces the voters as a ballot item, knee jerk bigotry will carry the day.
because unlike some of us, he does not run the risk of getting voted off the island.
Sorry Laurel, but I absolutely cannot buy the argument that because I’m not gay, that somehow my pro-marriage bona fides are suspect. That is an essentialist, identity-politics argument that cuts sympathetic people off from important causes of equality and justice.
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I do have a moral imagination. I do try my best to put myself in the position of others. So do many other people. The pro-equality movement needs to continue to appeal to that sense of human kinship, not heighten the divisions between us.
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Again, all this is a discussion of tactics. We are absolutely agreed on the goal. To suggest that lockstep agreement on tactics is a prerequisite for being in the pro-marriage camp is a very bad idea.
I am sure you do share the same goal, but I think that it is perfectly valid to suggest that your willingness to embrace this particular “tactic” is partly due to the fact that your own rights are not at risk.
It’s an ad hominem argument: You’re arguing about me, and not about the principle at stake.
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No, my marriage isn’t at stake. But I support marriage equality because there but for the grace of God go I.
This particular counter-argument is whether it is worth the risk of losing if the vote goes through. The claim is that you are undervaluing this risk.
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Perhaps you are not undervaluing it, but I think it is still a valid point.
My partner and I were thrilled to go down to Town Hall and offer flowers to couples coming to get their marriage licenses on the first day that Goodridge took effect in May of 2003.
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For the first time, our marriage was not a guilty privilege that divided us from friends and neighbors. The kid in our daughter’s school who has two moms could, if her parents decided it was appropriate, enjoy the benefits of being in a legally sanctioned family. Multiply that by tens of thousands of kids and couples across the Commonwealth.
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Also, we had the haters–the gay bashers and the bigots and their silent supporters–on the run. So we celebrated.
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I do not pretend for one instant that my conventional marriage is threatened by this truly anti-marriage amendment in the same way as same-sex marriages, but I take this threat to the institution of marriage very personally and seriously. This is the ONLY issue that I have written a letter to my legislator about in the past ten years.
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So I am saying the solidarity is real, the stakes are high, and we all have standing to weigh in on this issue because it is about all of us and our society. Let’s make sure to get the most we can from the human-rights victory that crystallized in Goodridge, and keep moving forward. Let’s keep the haters on the run, let’s not be afraid, and let’s do it the very best we can.
“Again, all this is a discussion of tactics. We are absolutely agreed on the goal. To suggest that lockstep agreement on tactics is a prerequisite for being in the pro-marriage camp is a very bad idea.”
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I don’t doubt your bona fides or anyone elses. But I do suggest that you consider this. When the minority is the group whose rights are at stake, it is appropriate to let the minority have a majority voice in tactics. Otherwise, you’re just another slice of the majority telling the minority, yet again, how to go about its business. I think this sort of compormise is possible if people want it to be. Think of it as a priceless opportunity to understand first hand what it is like to be a minority (assuming you’re not one already). It is a rare experience for people in the majority. Give yourself this gift of understanding, and give the minority control over its own life, for a change.
I understand and agree that in a society founded upon the rule and framework of laws such as that of these United States and our Commonwealth that yes the legislature has a responsibility, nay a duty to convene and vote on each of these amendments. However, I also believe that it is against the designs of our Republic and against the very values that the framers of our nations as well as our own states constitution had in mind when they viewed the creation of a “democratic republic”.
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Thomas Jefferson once eloquently put it that a majority vote is merely a dictatorship of the majority and not a true representation of the democratic principles that founded our nation. A vote on the amendment to put gay marriage on the ballot is a vote that procedurely should occur, and unfortunately is a vote that must occur before we can put Health Care on the ballot. Additionally I fully expect and will demand that my legislators as well as a majority of the legislature vote no on this proposterous amendment that will have 98% of the voting population dictate and determine the rights of the other 2%. If this amendment was more explicit in its demogoguery , the prohibition of interracial marriages perhaps, or the prohibition of non Christians from the full value of citizenship as another example, than I am sure no one would even consider a vote on the issue appropriate since such a vote would violate the sacred principles that created our country and hold it dear.
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Realistically the same legislature that voted down voter approved universal healthcare will also vote it down again if it were to go on the 2008 ballot and pass, however gay marriage makes it to the ballot it will be the most severe insult and form of disservice to the rule of law, the sanctity and dignity of human rights, and the democratic tradition we all hold dear. Personally I would prefer that my rights were upheld by a stalling legislature then some ceremonial poll on universal healthcare go to the ballot. And even though I am straight it is my own rights that are threatened by a dictatorship of the majority. Referenda in general, and especially discriminatory ones like this are the next step towards totaltarianism or anarchy.
I haven’t read the decision yet, but in my mind, I don’t see how upholding the Constitution by keeping a discriminatory amendment out of it is violating legislators’ oath of office.
You have written what I have tried to write several times so far.
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Not “let the people vote.” It’s make the legislators vote; they should vote “no.”
Don’t sacrifice gays and lesbians upon your altar of pure politcal process.
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That’s what it comes down to. If the technical words of the constitution are followed, the spirit of that document — equality for all — will die.
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Which do you prefer? I’ll take humanity over “technocracy” any day.
You sound just like the kind of person who would condemn a starving person to a year in jail for stealing a loaf of bread. After all, the “plain words” of the law indicate that is theft, strictly punishable by prison time.
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Following the exact letter of the law in a strict an inflexible way is not the route to justice. In this case, the “actual words” are being used to subvert the entire meaning of the very document in question.
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It would be rather ironic if the Constitution was used as the instrument in its own desecration.
What you call “the altar of process” most of us call the “rule of law”. I don’t like the idea of governing society according to the moral compass of whichever Robespierre has the most most guns and loudest voice at the moment.
…for people who get so hung up on the minutiae of words of the law that they completely lose sight of its spirit, it’s meaning, and its goal…
The rule of law is minutiae? That’s like saying the concept of phoenetics is the minutiae of linguistics! Let’s just suspend the whole constitution and do whatever you want already.
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There’s a term for someone who gets so hung up on their current goals that they decide it’s worth undermining the rule of law. There are a lot of them in Iraq at the moment, if I recall. Of course, the Cherokees probably have their own terms for people who ignore what the courts say because they don’t like the verdict — that is, those Cherokee descended from people who survived the Trail of Tears.
It’s not like MA is going to descend into anarchy if they don’t vote on this.
Obviously, you are correct in attacking the straw man you created. But I would ask how often do we get to violate the rule of law for convenience’s sake? Do you get to decide? Do we do it once a year when people are angry enough to warrant it, according to leaders of the State Legislature? Do we violate it any time people are scared to take their issue to the voters? I need written guidelines here.
You are trying to raise alarm about the dire consequences of going against the so-called “rule of law”. I don’t believe there will be any dire consequences.
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I think everyone agrees that not all laws are the same. People would rightfully be upset if you started going around and shooting people you don’t like, but very few are going to care if you park more than 6-inches from the curb on a wide street. Perhaps you are one of the few people who are upset by the latter infraction, but that would put you in a very small minority.
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So the question here is how important is this particular law and how bad is the infraction? Personally, I don’t think it is all that important, nor do I believe that most voters will care.
and this is a BIG one. Its not jaywalking we are talking about, or parking infractions. Its the Constitution; it couldn’t be more important.
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How bad is the infraction? Its fundamental. Will most voters care? Probably not, but thats no license to violate it. Just since most cops don’t care if you park 7″ away from the curb that is no license to willfully ignore that law either.
Of course, that is only my opinion.
maybe the endless discussion on BMG, the lawsuits, the news coverage….
Very few people are posting comments here, only a few people are behind the lawsuits, and the news coverage has been lackluster at best. None of those show any evidence whatsoever that popular sentiment is in line with yours.
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So we agree then, the majority should not get to vote on my civil rights. VOM and their friends at Focus on teh Family may be the loudest right now, but that gives them no right to try to set the moral compass via the constitution.
First of all, they’re not your civil rights, they’re our civil rights. The way you talk, you make it sound like we’re creating a new right for gays and lesbians, which is one of VOM’s top arguments. So stop helping them. Secondly, if FotF has the loudest voice, why is the Legislature preparing to ignore the separation or powers by not heeded the SJC (the same one that allowed gay marriages to happen in the first place)?
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Finally, the strongest protection of civil rights that exists is the rule of law — everyone knows what is allowed and what isn’t, and everyone has to follow that. Now, you apparently are eager to chuck that out the window for what may be a temporary victory (there will be another petition on this, surely). So next round when people are claiming civil rights that you don’t agree with (i.e., a Christian medical practitioner’s “right” to not prescribe or sell birth control) we’ll have clear precedent for ignoring the courts and letting it happen.
Would you settle for just winning it within the framework of Article 48?
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I’m thinking of all the
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As in, “Nice little gazebo you have there, Senator Antimarriage. Be a shame if anything was to happen to it.”
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Think of it as
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Hey, it’s not pretty, but if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the sausage factory.
It’s OK for lobbyists and activists to argue that the ends justify the means, that violating the constitution is necessary in order to save tired activists from having to defend their right to marry. But legislators who take an oath to obey and defend the constitution should take more seriously the rule of law. I don’t see how they can take that oath again less than 24 hours after violating it.
In our state we have a full time legislature whose main job is to vote. They are elected to vote on issues.
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The Goodridge decision, I feel was in response to the legislatures repeated failures to vote on this serious issue affecting the rights of the citizens of this Commonwealth. The legislature refused to vote.
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I believe marriage equity will have the votes at the ballot box.
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Our Constitutions Must Be Respected. It is the oldest Constitution in the Western Hemisphere and should not be disrespected and set aside for convenience or political expediency.
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is that all the legislature is there to do? not think? not strategize? well heck, if ida realized that before, ida pushed my “cheese mandatory at eveny meal” amendment long ago!
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i am extremely happy that my rep and sen. at thinkers and reasoners, as well as seat-warmers who vote when appropriate.
It’s nice thet you think my civil rights would win a popular vote, but all the same, I’d rather not take that bet. I am not a gambling person, especially with my life and civil rights at stake.
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How about respecting the constitution by not voting to amend it to take away civil rights?
… and it’s one the legislators are violating by refusing to perform their constitutionally-required function.
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By the way, the constitution (http://www.mass.gov/…) is explicit about which rights are excluded from the amendment-by-petition process:
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“No proposition inconsistent with any one of the following rights of the individual, as at present declared in the declaration of rights, shall be the subject of an initiative or referendum petition: The right to receive compensation for private property appropriated to public use; the right of access to and protection in courts of justice; the right of trial by jury; protection from unreasonable search, unreasonable bail and the law martial; freedom of the press; freedom of speech; freedom of elections; and the right of peaceable assembly.”
Article 48, Section 2
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The right to marry isn’t among the exclusions, but maybe it should be. But the right that is in jeopardy in this case isn’t the right to marry. It’s the right to put a constitutional amendment before the Constitutional Convention by citizen petition.
So if the amendment passes I’ll still have the right to marry? That is my right now, but it surely will not be if this amendment passes. How can you state otherwise?
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I stated in another thread that this ability of legislators to avoid votes on constitutional amendments be seen as a loophole in need of fixing. Seems you might agree with that. If so, how can we fix it? How can we modify the laws or constitution to compel the legislators to vote each and every time? That it seems to me is a more productive line of enquiry than is this ‘let the gays lose their marriage rights because i don;t like the legis use of loopholes’ approach.
Because if gays lose the right to marry, they have lost a segment of equal protection under the law. That is what Goodridge was all about, and why this amendment reverses that decision (I still don’t see how the court should have even allowed signatures to be gathered in the first place based on this)
Once we trash the rule of law by ignoring court decisions, short-circuiting the constitution, and doing the other things that you advocate, the idea of a “right” will be meaningless. Rights are now whatever the loudest, angriest people say they are.
Just because someone may be able to get away with breaking an unenforceable law does not imply that they will be able to disregard enforceable ones with impunity.
We’re building the mountain of precedent for the Legislature to do whatever it wants. How easy is it for Trav n Sal to say, “Well, when we ignored the Constitution (as interpreted by the SJC) on gay marriage, you cheered. So we know you’re really behind us now that we ignore the Constitution and SJC this time around.”
To kill another initiative petition that has the support of 25%-49% of the Legislature but is strongly opposed by more than 50%?
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I won’t object to that (at least not on procedural grounds).
Didn’t realize you favored tyranny of the majority.
As I have repeatedly said, I do not believe it is right that the process allows a minority to take away the rights of another minority.
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The “tyranny of the majority” rhetoric used in this context is hyperbolic craptrap.
Didn’t realize you favored tyranny of the majority.
And, if legislators feel that not repealing civil rights trumps the Constitution, they have a duty to propose such an amendment.
An outcome of the passage of the anti-marriage amendment that I think has been neglected is that it will create 3 classes of people in the commonwealth:
– heterosexuals who can get civil marriages at will
– married LGBT couples who cannot remarry if they divorce
– LGBT people who didn’t get married before the amendment and have missed the window of opportunity forever.
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My reading of the constitution Article VII (I’m an amateur) tells me that the commonwealth is not supposed to favor one class or group over another. Yet this anti-marriage amendment will create 3 classes of people with respect to access to a civil institution. Is that constitutional? If not, who will be the arbiter of it’s constitutionality? Will we just be living then with a constitution that conflicts with itself?
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Sorry if this has been covered before in another thread, but has anyone compiled a list of previous amendments that the legis let die without a vote? If so please post. I would like to do some research.
If the joint session fails to act on its own proposals, which require a majority anyway, that is different than failing to act on an initiative petition that only requires a fourth to proceed to the voters.
Just curious?
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There must have been dozens of these over the past 90 years…did all of them get a final 25% vote?
There have been 12 initiative amendments submitted to the Legislature by the people since Article 48 was adopted in 1918 – including the 2 now pending before the ConCon.
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Of the ten that have been through the process, three made it to the ballot and two were ratified by the people. Six were killed by procedural votes and one was voted down on the merits.
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Pending
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The pattern is fairly clear. The Legislature did its constitutional duty under Article 48 until William Bulger became Senate President. After that every initiative amendment that either imposed a burden on the Legislature, financial or structural, or offended the Catholic Church was killed procedurally. The Grad Tax proposal had majority support of the members and didn’t offend the Senate President or the Cardinal.
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By the time Tom Birmingham became Senate President, the procedural slaughter of inititiative amendments was standard practice and he killed the first gay marriage ban by adjourning.
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Barbara Roop
Barbara and CDinBoston for the information, esp Barbara for all the details!
Good research.
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DO you suppose they will vote on the marriage amendment, but manage to skip the health care one, somehow. That would be ironic (and very sad).
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p> In the hundreds of news stories on google news about this who issue, almost none have mentioned the health care amendment….but if they vote one one, they really have to vote on the other too.
Until this week there was a legal theory that supported the procedural move of recessing without a vote. I think generally people are giving the leg too much credit for the ‘honorable’ tactic of using procedure to kill the petition. They are cowards of the first order and didn’t vote because they didn’t want to be heard on a controversial topic. They rigged the whole process to play out as far removed from the next election as possible, assuming it would be forgotten. Whether they vote next week will be purely a function of a political calculus as to which action will be most favorable to the only constituency that matters to them – themselves.
Wasn’t anti-marriage I by legislative sponsorship? (Or were there two that year?)
I got an email today from my state rep, who was one of the 109. I had emailed him yesterday about the SJC decision and expressed my wish that he switch his vote.
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As it turns out, he will switch his vote. The SJC didn’t give him much of a choice, he says, and he will not vote to adjourn now until all the business before the ConCon is settled.
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I have to imagine there are many more like him in the 109. My money is on having a vote take place now whereas before I wasn’t so sure.