Sco lays it out at .08 Acres: Medford Representative Paul Donato wants to reduce the number of people who can get married in Massachusetts. Why does this elected official hate the wonderful institution of marriage? Why is he opposed to families, the bedrock of America? More specifically, where can a Democrat be found to run against Mr. Donato and give the voters of the 35th Middlesex a pro-marriage pro-family representative.
Representative Donato also uses our fine state Constitution, the oldest in the world, as a plaything for his personal prejudices, according to Sco’s report. When it comes to health care, he claims that the legislature need not even vote on a proposed constitutional amendment. He backed this perverse philosophy with a vote for procedural shenanigans at the last ConCon that would have done Vladimir Ilych Lenin and the Cold War Politburo proud: the legislature never even voted on the health care amendment. When it comes to an anti-marriage amendment, however, he claims that not only must he vote — he must vote Yes. This is political cynicism of the Karl Rove variety: the kind that destroys the confidence of observers in the personal integrity of the politician at issue.
Someone has got to run against Paul Donato and restore honor to the 35th Middlesex.
Donato had, in the past, sounded like a reasonable guy. Now, it seems, he’s been suckered by the “let the people vote” crowd. Check this out:
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Geez, has this doofus even read the Constitution?
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Wait, on second thought, don’t answer that. Here’s hoping Sal DiMasi is serious about trying to squelch this ghastly amendment, and will make it known that voting the wrong way has consequences. Sometimes, you need to play hardball.
thx for the link, David. Those HS students were impressive. They’ve obviously carefully thought through the issue of fairness and institutionalized discrimination. I think Donato, whose responses lacked any particle of logic, has just met the crowd who will vote his next opponent into office.
…Donato is obviously saying that the legislature should have no say in any constitutional amendment that is proposed by initiative petition. The constitution clearly disagrees.
because he had no problem blocking the health care constitutional amendment — also proposed by initiative petition.
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Donato is basically making things up to support his anti-marriage view. If he wants to be against marriage equality, that’s his choice, but he shouldn’t insult our intelligence by inventing reasons other than his own personal opinions.
He’s not being a rubber stamp. He is against SSM (he’s for civil unions), so it’s hardly surprising that he thinks this question deserves to be on the ballot. I guess he didn’t think that about the health care question.
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One thing I was wondering about the health care ammendment – would the new law that forces people to purchase insurance have been constitutional if we had the health care right in our constitution?
Who’s interpretation.
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The consitution, state or federal, is a “living document”.
Things change—like seasons.
happening in MA and the region? MassMarrier reports that governor Lynch has just signed Civil Unions into being in NH. With ME, NH, VT, MA, CT & NJ providing marriage or similar and NY & RI working towards that end, Donato puts himself squarely in the halcyon days of knuckle dragging discrimination. You are right Bob. He must be replaced.
And was the sponsor of the bill to create RB’s. So he is right there with NH and all those other states. Now, if he was against civil unions, you might have a point that he was out of step, but he’s not.
He’s also anti-Choice and anti-Stem Cell Research. I think we can safely say he’s out of step.
It seems that well over half of USA disagrees with NE and NY. This presents a bit of a quandry.
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What is the essence of life , liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Who behavior will we condone and what will we reject. Common sense dictates that a line must be drawn somewhere. Who do we placate? What will we embrace?
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
…this is Assachusetts, the Gay State, put it on the ballot and it will be defeated resoundingly. end of story.
very adult of you.
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Have a nice day.
if you’re looking for an anti-equality rep that is a candidate to switch his vote, Donato is a good bet. He’s a chairman of a do-nothing committee thanks to Sal, making an extra $15K and from a district that’s changing demographically. If Sal tells him to flip, I’m guessing he does.
before seeing the Medford Transcript’s report of his meeting the other night, which sounded pretty unequivocal. As I said above, deeply disappointing.
I would love to run against Mr. Donato, as I stated back in January in one of my postings. I would gladly relocate back to my old residence 1 mile away to be in his district again and take him on.
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Sure, I don’t have all that much experience in government. Nor do I currently have the funds to launch a campaign…but that’s what fundraisers are for, right? And as far as experience goes…I’ve got life experience. Good networking skills. I’ve served on a Board of Directors. I was born and raised in Medford. I know what the real residents of Medford are in need of. It’s my city. I would love to take it back and put its representative back into the hands of the people.
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Now, how do I do that exactly?
Announce on the Internet that you are forming an exploratory committee, create a myspace and facebook site and sign up at Virtual Life…
While I totally disagree with Paul Donato on the issues of SSM, choice and the death penalty – I must say he is a fine human being with dedication to the people of Medford, the poor, elderly, people with substance abuse problems and especially foster kids…he was one himself!
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I don’t live in his district but I have friends who do and he is very good at constituent sevices – he even sends out birthday cards!!! I doubt he would lose!
That’s what most of the people thought when Sciortino ran against Ciampa and beat him out of his rep seat he held for 16 years.
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The people are calling, they want change.
Donato is dedicated to the people of Medford (except the gay ones), the poor (exception: gay ones), elderly (but not the gay gray), people with substance abuse problems (unless they be gay) and especially foster kids (except gay ones, or ones with gay foster parents). There are gay people in all segments of society. Nice guy indeed!
While I totally disagree with Paul Donato on the issues of SSM, choice and the death penalty – I must say he is a fine human being
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…a fine human being is not sufficient to hold a political office. (That’s about like saying that people in political office should be excused for their defalcations because they “meant well.”) Being acceptable on the issues is what it’s all about.
I think he is in a much different position than Ciampa was in 2004 – Ciampa lost the support of his district and was not good at constituent services. Donato is.
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I will admit that I could not vote for him if I lived in Medford and I do not excuse his position on SSM, however I do know that he does not hate gays, he just does not support marriage.
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p.s. I just wanted to state that he is strong on some other issues that I care about..
the two halves of that statement are like oil and water, Capital D. That’s like saying he does not hate blacks, but he does not support their right to vote.
I agree that this Marriage is a right – but I stand by my comment that he is not a hater.
his vote to ban marriage is a direct attack on gay people and their ability to protect one another as all married couples wish to do. it is a direct attack on their constitutional right to be treated fairly and equally under the law. why do you go out of your way to defend him when he is willing to strip a minority of the fullness of it’s citizenship? not only is that hate, you might say it’s really, really bad constituent service.
Because of the radical, narrow minded people like you who are the real haters.
“you’re intolerant because you won’t tolerate my intolerance” types.
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If Donato had a challenger who agreed with him on every issue except same-sex marriage, why should Laurel be expected to stick with Donato? Because he’s an incumbent? Give me a break.
Print up some “I HATE BIGOTS” bumper stickers. I just like the irony.
Are you a humorless dweeb? Just curious. Why the zero?
Person 1: “I disagree with that person’s policy findings”
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Person 2: “You’re just a hater”
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Yeah… real highbrow discussion on issues there. Really got into the meat of the issue.
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Its an irrelevant distraction so I flagged it as such.
…the meme of the right wingnuts. They are unable to distinguish among “hate,” “disagreement” and “contempt.” I disagree with many of the policies of the Bush malAdministration, particularly regarding Iraq, and I am contemptuous of Bush and others in his malAdministration. Does that mean I hate them? No.
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That meme merely reflects a cheapening of the English language.
You don’t understand the ratings system laid out in The Rules of the Road. Comments like Gary’s are “typical of thoughtful discussion between acquaintances”, they might be an irrelevant distraction, but they are not “Insults, personal attacks, rudeness, and blanket unsupported statements”.
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When you see a comment that you think is irrelevant, there is a special rating for that: a “3 – Worthless”. A “0 – Delete Comment” is for comments that violate the rules. They are not for comments you don’t agree with, comments that you don’t want other people to see, or comments that don’t add to the converstation. It isn’t against the rules to make cutting jokes or observations. Please don’t rate something a “0” unless it truly violates the Rules.
… I take to mean it has no value and contributes nothing. Distraction is a notch lower in that it actively hampers good discussion. Therin lies the difference as I conceive it. Of course, your milage may vary.
Your idea of a distraction might just be Bob’s idea of funny, as was the case here. So it’s wrong to mark it for deletion so that no one else can see it at all. For one thing, it helps us get to know Gary to see his irrelevant distractions as well as his relevant distractions.
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Delete violations, don’t try to save people from seeing other people’s contributions to the discussion just because you don’t think they’re good arguments or whatever. Only violations should be marked for deletion.
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I think that marking comments for deletion that do not violate the Rules should itself be a Rules violation, it hampers discourse to censor comments just because you don’t agree with the viewpoint.
… when enough people find it less than worthless, isn’t that what is supposed to happen? Isn’t that the design? Isn’t the point that if enough people find it delete-worthy, it doesn’t matter if you or Bob find it funny? If it is your assertion that the only things to be ‘hidden’ are policy violations then I take your point, though I’m not sure that I agree on its premise.
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While I’d be agree that abuse and distraction are different levels of ‘bad’, my choices are ‘worthless’ and ‘less than worthless’. I’ve already explained why I thought it ‘less than worthless’.
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As I read them, I myself do not see that the ‘Rules of the Road’ indicate that the purpose of 0’s is for the community to police policy violations and not for democratic representation of general dissatisfaction, but I suppose that the Rules could be honestly read by others to imply that.
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I suppose it could be clarified, or perhaps Charlie, David, and Bob find utility in keeping it vauge like the US Taiwan policy.
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If an authority proclaims that, as a matter of site policy, zeros are for policy violations only, I will be happy to go find all my zeros and adjust them accordingly (there aren’t that many).
I suppose I could be more eloquent, but why mince words.
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Evangelical Christians are hated by a good portion of gay activists. They see us as a threat to their survival.
You keep misrepresenting people like this. The only difference between marriage and civil unions is that civil unions won’t give the couple the right to attempt to conceive children together. They’d give people the ability to protect one another. We shouldn’t give anyone the right to use genetic engineering to create a child that isn’t from a man and a woman.
He is now a Bigoted Nazi Homophobe
Can you support that? Is he old enough to have been alive during WWII? Or do you mean he is, or was, a member of the smaller post-war American Nazi Party. Or perhaps just a sympathizer? All things considered, it seems a rather extreme allegation.
Then its “homophobe” when you explain why
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and then its “Nazi”- You only get the “Nazi” title if you continue to speak out and dare challenge them on any aspect of the issue.
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The 4th level is “Klansman” which I think is as bad as 3 but I’m not sure. This title is reserved for the people who actually show up and protest across the street from them.