Today’s papers and other newsie sources are chock full o’ marriage news. Here’s some of what I found interesting.
- The most important story, really, is where the votes came from, and why. Kris Mineau’s nonsense notwithstanding, it seems quite clear that MassEquality’s strategy of sending gay and lesbian couples into the offices of legislators around the state worked brilliantly. Here is a nice report by Lisa Wangsness and Andrea Estes of several such stories. The lede:
Representative Richard J. Ross, a Republican from Wrentham, had a revelation Wednesday afternoon after meeting with a gay Republican who presented him with this challenge: As director of his family’s funeral home, Ross had surely treated every family the same, no matter what their race, religion, or sexual orientation. So why would he do anything else in his other job, as a lawmaker?
- One of course expects the Globe’s editorial page to be happy, and they are. More interesting are the much more conservative Boston Herald’s editorialists, who, whatever their views on gay marriage itself (which remain uncertain), are happy to have seen the process played out fairly — and harsh on those who sought to use it for political advantage.
Yesterday’s defeat of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage represents not just a victory for gay couples, but a loss for those who cynically sought political advantage by favoring the most uncompromising version of such an amendment. The latter, like presidential contender Mitt Romney, got what they deserved.
As we noted yesterday, nowhere in the Constitution is there guaranteed the right to a popular vote on a constitutional amendment. Lawmakers had a set of proscribed rules to follow, and with only slight variation here and there (and after some not-so-gentle prodding by the Supreme Judicial Court), they managed to follow those rules yesterday.
The Herald also notes, quite correctly, that (as Cos has already observed) electoral politics played a significant role in what happened yesterday.
[T]he citizens have indeed had an opportunity to weigh in – at the ballot box, in legislative elections. And given their opportunity to weigh in, a sufficient number of lawmakers chose to uphold the right for gay couples to marry.
- The NYT’s report has a particularly hilarious quote from an angry Kris Mineau:
Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, did not indicate whether opponents would start a new petition drive, but said, “We’re not going away.” He added, “We want to find out why votes switched and see what avenues are available to challenge those votes, perhaps in court.”
“Perhaps in court.” Let’s see, what term would I use to describe a judge who would even consider an inquiry into the motivations behind a vote taken in the legislature? Hint: it rhymes with “cracktivist.”
- We should talk more about Peter Gelzinis’s columns here — he’s a fine writer whose work tends to be so intensely local that it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. He’s one of those guys who’s really skilled at taking a single person’s story and spinning it into a much bigger commentary. From his piece today:
Perhaps Matthew Machnik sensed the end was at hand. Standing beneath an elm across from the State House, this 23-year-old disciple of the Lord shifted his incantations into overdrive….
Evidently, all lines to the Great Beyond were busy. [Heh. -ed.] …
Ironically, Matthew was a good deal younger than the majority of his fellow disciples who clutched green signs proclaiming “Let The People Vote.” Most of them, in fact, looked like Elinor Rafferty, a silver-haired woman from Braintree who did not hesitate to venture across the DMZ of Beacon Street to get squarely in the face of Sen. Brian Joyce…. Joyce called the vote an hour before it was taken. He explained that it wasn’t so much a matter of counting heads as understanding that the generational divide stretched out along both sides of Beacon Street would only continue to grow wider with time.
Indeed, the slightly smaller crowd huddled on the south side of the street, steeped in scripture and anxiety, looked older and angrier than the crowd yelling, “This is What Marriage Looks Like.” “The tide of history is clearly with us,” said Steven Cohen, a Boston real estate agent, who was standing with Bruce Withey, his partner of 20 years and husband of three, along with their two sons, Jeremy and Aaron. “All issues involving civil rights – and this is certainly such an issue – tend not only to move toward consensus,” Steven Cohen said. “But in the end, they move the rest of society to a more just place. This is what we want for our two sons. And that’s why it was important for us and our children to be here today.”
Charlie Freeman, a high school janitor, who said he came out of the closet at 21 to finally give true meaning to his surname, said that the message of the day was captured in the sign that read: “Pontius Pilate let the people vote. And look how that turned out.” [Double heh. -ed.]
- Howie Carr and Jeff Jacoby are of course upset with what happened yesterday. Most of Carr’s commentary is nonsense, since he (deliberately?) conflates the procedure for putting proposed laws on the ballot with proposed constitutional amendments.
The people used to put referendum questions on the ballot, and if the measures passed, the Legislature enforced the new laws. Then, about 10 years ago, the solons got high-handed – the referendum questions were still allowed on the ballot, but once they were passed, the General Court felt free to ignore the people?s mandate. Now, after yesterday?s Flag Day fiasco, it appears we are no longer allowed to vote on questions that might offend the Politically Correct.
*snore*. We’ve explained this so many times that there’s really no point in doing so again (short version: the lege has no gatekeeper role for proposed laws; it obviously does have such a role for proposed constitutional amendments). Just one technical point: a “referendum” is actually a way of suspending or repealing a law that the lege has enacted. The procedure for directly enacting new laws is the “initiative.” If Howie’s going to obfuscate, he should at least get his terminology straight.
Jacoby, for his part, acknowledges defeat in MA, but sees the potential for extraterritorial repercussions:
It is only a matter of time before a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts finds a federal judge prepared to rule that under the US Constitution, their marriage license must be granted “full faith and credit” by every other state. Same-sex marriage will be the law of the land. Only a federal marriage amendment can keep that from happening. Today’s vote may have settled the issue in Massachusetts. It has unsettled it everywhere else.
Oh, and by the way, the sky is falling. Or hadn’t you noticed?
- Jon Keller likes Governor Patrick’s admonition not to be ungracious in victory.
Every time you start to wonder why you once liked Patrick, he gets off a line like this one: “The folks on the other side of this question are still our brothers and sisters. And we need them tomorrow and the next day and the day after that if we are together going to confront and solve the challenges facing up economically or in the public schools or on broken roads and bridges and a health care system we are trying to reinvent and a whole list of other issues on which we must come together.”
Patrick-haters will scoff. I say, that’s an excellent sentiment, beautifully phrased, and delivered in timely fashion.
Hear hear. Keller also correctly notes that some other local Dems haven’t always been as stalwart in their support of what happened yesterday.
And yet, high gas prices and longstanding concerns over air pollution and internet spam didn’t stop [Senator John] Kerry from also issuing the statement we’d all been waiting for, the profound, decisive comment that helps ease the frustration of “The Sopranos” inconclusive ending: his reaction to today’s defeat of the gay-marriage ban. [Keller then quotes Kerry’s statement praising yesterday’s vote.] No…, thank YOU, Senator, for all your you-know-what-to-the-wall support for gay marital rights over the years!
What’s that? You supported (link) a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage here, with the oh-so-convenient fig leaf of also supporting “civil union rights” a.k.a. non-marriage?
Oh.
Touché. Here’s hoping Senator Kerry comes around unequivocally on gay marriage sooner rather than later.
That’s enough for now. More to come, no doubt!
This man
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From yesterday’s Glob:
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Hey, Matt (and Jeff): Progess is a bitch, ain’t it?
…would continue to run a column by an idiot such as Jacoby. Unless they don’t have to pay for it.
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The Glob has discharged columnists of far better stature and far more intelligence than the idiot Jacoby in recent years. Jacoby’s column is syndicated and posted on the patently ridiculous Townhall.com website. If the Glob pays for his columns, they should spend their money on intelligent columnists. If the Glob doesn’t pay for his columns, they should let us know that they are nothing more than unpaid advertisements.
Is this an invitation to shill for our own stuff? (For a good cause of course.) I’m pushing for this state bill to help replace toxic chemicals with safer ones. Margot wrote about it at Truth & Progress and was good enough to write me and point out a Lowell Sun article I missed. I recommend a read of Margot’s great post, and taking the actions she lists.
Since the SJC said our constitution demanded gay marriage, wouldn’t the marriage amendment in effect be repealing the law of the current constitution, making it a referendum?
Actually I don’t think the SJC “demanded” anything; they just said that Massachusetts law didn’t expressly ban same-sex marriage and thus threw it back to the Legislature for resolution. The essence of the SJC ruling is that same-sex marriages must be recognized as valid because there is no legal measure for prohibiting them. As a result nothing in the current Constitution is being “repealed,” and any effort to amend the Constitution — i.e., introducing an amendment defining civil marriage as the union of one man and one woman — would be a matter of initiative rather than referendum. (At least from this layman’s perspective.)
to read the actual Goodridge decision, so that you can formulate more meaningful questions. Although it’s a judicial decision with many legal references in it, it is quite readable by non-lawyers like us.
Halpern v. Canada (Attorney General), 2002 CanLII 42749 (ON S.C.D.C.). That quite clearly gave “cover” for the SJC’s decision
A referendum is something that is referred by the legislature to a vote by the electorate. An initiative is something that is proposed by the electorate that may subsequently be voted on by the electorate and passed into law.
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The MA constitutional process is–or can be–a mixed bag, but it is not solely a referendum process.
That actually answered my question perfectly.
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I would wonder why anthony zeroed me on this instead of just answering like you did.
…I find it totally unacceptable to rate a comment that is nothing more than a question. Which is what your comment was.
Some questions are clearly trolls. Some questions are nasty or impolite. They deserve sub-5 ratings.
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Some questions are clearly insightful. Some questions are clever, or interesting. They deserve super-4 ratings.
it by accident. Can’t take it back unfortunately.
At least you can on my computer… just click the drop-down menu and select something else.
May I make a minor correction, David? The sky is falling in the Jacoby-Camenker/Contrada-Mineau Cash Cow Universe, and so the proper term to use would be “extraterrestrial repercussions”. It should be painfully obvious that now that humans are marrying freely, next the Martians will be wanting to marry the Venusians. Where will it all end??? A slippery slope to the galactic rim! We must* not* relent* in pointing out this shocking potentiality that will cram it’s alien agenda down our children’s throats and swallow them up whole!
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*Your donation is vital. Please help us carry on God(TM)’s important work by giving amply and often.
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THAT’S what changed his mind? Touching story, but… it hadn’t occurred to him to treat poeple equally until someone pointed that out? Thanks for the vote, but I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Ed, I don’t know anything about that particular story, but I was involved early on in getting married couples and their neighbors into meetings with their legislators. I can tell you that, amazingly enough, it does not occur to some people to treat all people fairly. It seems that many people, legislators included, don’t think they know any LGBT people personally. And so they think of gay people in the abstract, and act based on stereotypes and the wishes of anti-gay people in their districts who they do know, or have at least met. This is why coming out* at all levels, even as a constituent to your legislator, is so important. We must replace those stereotypes with real people and their stories.
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*In this context, coming out isn’t just for LGBT people. Non-LGBT people need to raise the issue too with their legislators, and let them know they expect fairness in the laws for their LGBT peers.
I have to be amused for a second…I see you’re using LGBT instead of GLBT…is that like saying herstory instead of history? LMAO
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I’m not being mean, just being cute, BTW…woman power! grin It just tickled me when I noticed it. 😉
glad to give you a giggle! actually though, it’s just the way it flies off my keyboard. but i certainly don’t mind listing lesbians first. 🙂 others can lead off with their own favorite letter.
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i’m thinking of deliberately switching to alphabetical listings. ABGILQT. what ya think? well…maybe not! it looks like a total my misprotypociation of my favorite movie.
…to refer to the collection of L/GBTQSSxyz.
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It’s easier. And I don’t have to worry about the caps-shift key.
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/tic
Check it out. Just like a closet case telling anti-gay jokes to deflect attention away from himself, Willard is calling for a federal anti-quality amendment. Of course, and good conservative knows he’s just blowing smoke, because two consecustive attempts at that failed, even thought they were advanced during the zenith of Bushco power. No chance of that getting anywhere now. But hey, he thinks the socially conservative segment of the electorate can’t spot a shell game when they see one, well, he may be right. After all, we do have 2 X Bushco.
First time poster, but I have lurked from the link off mydd for a while.
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I work as a lobbyist at the State House. Let me just throw out some props to Republican Rep. Richard Ross. Yes, a GOPer and I hate almost all Republicans but this guy is one of the few who I consider a principled man. His district is the most repug in the state and had a majority of calls for the ballot placement.
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I talked to him about a year ago about my marriage and explained to him that Equal Protection should not (and IS not) subject to the whims of even a democratic (little “d”) majority. I practice civil rights law and had talked to him for two hours about the 14th Am, EP, etc. and I kept in contact with him since.
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He had thanked ME for explaining the issue to him. And that was months ago. I also heard from some people that his family was actually pressuring him to toe the repug line. I guess he is simply one of the most stand-up guys up there. Certainly better than those asshole socially conservative Dems. Oh, and he has had TREMENDOUS pressure from his state Senator seatmate, the odious Scott Brown (one of the most reptilian legislators in the state), and yet he resisted it.
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I do not live in his district, though, so there might have been other things going on down there. I live in Somerville (Provost and Jehlen). I could be wrong about this, but I am just relating my experience.
I just don’t know what I think about even quoting from him anymore, at this point. So much of what he says is obvious talking-head nonsense, that I’ve lost any respect for the guy that I ever once had. A stopped clock may be right twice a day, but that doesn’t mean it should become a recognized, oft-quoted clock: it’s still a broken clock and, by all accounts, should be thrown away.
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After all, I’m sure there have been Jeff Jacoby columns I could agree with too, but that doesn’t mean I’ll either a) recognize him as legitimate or b) think there aren’t 100,000 better conservatives the Globe could employ as columnists in the Globe – just like there surely are better political analysts out there who could work at Keller’s station. If most progressives view him as a ‘bad columnist,’ yet promote him just the same, why would TV News ever find it well-suited to hire decent people to do political commentary? Keller is just our local example, the same could be said of people like Chris Matthews and Lou Dobbs.