From Deval central:
“I am disappointed by today’s vote in the Constitutional Convention. We have never used the initiative petition to limit individual freedoms and personal privacy, but today’s vote was a regrettable step in that direction.
“We have work to do over the next year to turn this around. I am heartened by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the members of the legislature – a margin of over 2 to 1 — voted to move on. I pledge to do what I can to build on that momentum, so that our Constitution will continue to stand for liberty and freedom, and not discrimination.”
Please share widely!
Here we have the Commonwealth’s Gov.-elect urging our legislators to violate their oath of office.
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Is this an impeachable offense?
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I may not agree with David on political issues, but I agree with him 100% that legislature’s handling of the Con Con process, current and past, seems to laugh in the face of the rule of law. Certainly the SJC thinks so.
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Both the health care and the same-sex marriage issues should have been brought forward, and voted on in the affirmative. Both issues deserve to be put before the voters.
Wow, with logic like that, it’s going to be a long four years.
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I, for one, am proud of Governor-elect Patrick for having the courage to speak up and stand up to those who would and will discriminate.
What bothered me about Deval’s comments, particularly before the vote, was the way he belittled the effort and concerns of the 170,000 people who signed petitions and the thousands for whom this is a really important issue.
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It’s time to move on to other issues, not let “a few individuals” distract us from important issues like better schools and economic development. It’s time to stop listening to these people, even if we have to violate the clear language of the constitution to drive them and their issue out of the political process.
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How does that square with his commitment to civic engagement? We want people engaged, but only the people we like, and only if they want to get engaged on issues the governor considers important?
First off, they didn’t actually get 170,000 signatures. Only 126,000 were actually verified. And those are highly suspect as well given the large amount of fraud that were uncovered in the signature gathering process. And please explain to me how using out of state money to hire professional out of state signature gatherers who then use misleading tactics to get signatures is the beacon of civic engagement to which we should aspire?
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Second, this may be a really important issue to you, but trust me, it will never affect your life in the same way that it affects the thousands of GLBT people who will be denied all sorts of basic rights and privileges enjoyed by our heterosexual neighbors. I would imagine most heterosexual people care a lot more that their kids get a good education, that their property taxes are reasonable, that they have a good paying job and that they have affordable access to health care rather than whether their gay neighbors can or cannot legally marry.
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Third, a lot of time and debate has already been spent on this effort. The governor was saying that it’s simply time to move on and talk about issues we haven’t had a chance to talk about yet. Remember, the citizens petition was an end-round to try to get around the defeat of the legislative petition. It was not as if this petition brought this issue before the ConCon for the first time. Prior to yesterday, 18 votes had been taken on same-sex marriage by the ConCon. 18. This isn’t a small group trying to become civically engaged. This is a small group trying to hijack the legislature until it finally votes the way that they want.
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We have had over two years of equal marriage and nobody has pointed to any negative consequences that have resulted. The sun still rises in the East and sets in the West. No plagues have been visited upon us. We are still attached to the mainland and not sinking into the sea. Oh, and the divorce rate still remains lowest in the country. I guess all those straight marriages were on better footing than people gave them credit for (and if someone’s gay marriage ruins your straight marriage, doesn’t that speak more to the problems in that straight marriage?)
This is a “really important issue” for me for the same reason it is important to you. I’ve been advocating for gay marriage in print for more than 10 years. But it’s not the only issue. If gay marriage was the only important issue for me, I wouldn’t care that the legislature has made a mockery of the citizen initiative process; I’d only care about the fate of the anti-marriage amendment. If it was the only important issue, I wouldn’t care that the candidate I supported has shifted from a stance of “get involved” to one of “get over it.”
No one asked me. No one I know was asked. I haven’t weighed in yet, so I don’t want to “move on.”
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As a matter of fact, who but the SJC has weighed in?
This issue has been before the state legislature for the past five years and has really been going since the Goodridge decision was handed down. Since 2004, various ConCons have debated several different versions of anti-equal marriage amendments and have now taken over 20 votes on the issue. This is the second time an amendment has moved on to a second vote (the first being the so-called Travaligni-Lees Compromise amendment which was subsequently voted down in it’s second session). And that amendment was passed only after something like 4 days of debate over 3 sessions back in 2004. So the legislature, which generally is the place for debate on legislation (we don’t get to vote on every law) has spent considerable time and effort on this issue).
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Regarding those legislative debates, both sides of the issue have made extensive efforts to get their supporters to meet, write and call their legislators, to write letters to the editor of their local papers, to canvass for supporters, and to attend rallies in support of each side.
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And, we have had two legislative and one gubenatorial election where equal marriage was an issue (and I note, the pro-equality people have done quite well).
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So, I would think if you haven’t thrown your two cents into the debate by this point, it isn’t for lack of invitation or opportunity. Have you had a chance to go to the polls and vote on an amendment directly? No. But that’s the way the system works. Besides the arguments to be made about the validity of voting on taking away existing rights from a discrete group of people, there is also the argument that we live in a representative democracy and therefore generally rely on our representatives to debate and vote on legislation rather than relying on public votes for each and every issue that comes before the state.