From: JDG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >It is unlikely that a marrriage once granted can ever be taken away. >Would you agree that you were not married if a majority said you and >your wife were too different? It is also highly unlikely that a >majority in Mass. will vote to take this away.
I have stated before that if by the grace of God I am fortunate enough to marry some day that my appearance before a judge will essentially be a piece of bureaucratic red tape in my life. It is in this sense that homosexual couples in the United States are already free to marry in Unitarian Universalist congregations.
So you wouldn't care about losing all the legal rights and responsibilities that
come with marriage, if they were denied to you?
We'll see what happens when the Massachusetts Voters approve their constitutional amendment in two years in order to tell those tyrants on the MA Supreme Court exactly what the MA Constitution says.
My take on this as a fairly long-term MA resident: I just don't think the amendment
will be approved. When the vote comes up, I don't think your activist judge
argument is going to sway many people at all (MA is strongly pro-choice, which
also relies on activist judging...), and so the anti-gay-marriage people will resort to
other, potentially more inflamatory arguments, which I suspect won't sit well with
many moderates/independents here.
This has already started. On a local talk radio show late last week, I heard a rather
shrill-sounding ad urging people to call in to Gov. Romney to "live up to his promise
and do more to stop gay marriage", and IIRC implying a gay conspiracy to destroy the
institution of marriage. When the hosts came back on, they were a bit flabbergasted
by it. "What the *heck* was that!?!" probably best describes their reaction (and mine),
and they continued to make ncredulous references to the ad for the rest of the show.
These guys are *not* liberal politicos or pundits; they're fairly moderate "everyday-type"
guys who talk sports as much or more than politics. I remember they actually had been
saying "Why can't gays just have civil unions instead of marriage?", when the ruling
first came out.
Anything that has even the slightest whiff of Wllie Horton-type FUD is going to turn
people up here off in droves.
Aside from that, the vote is 2 years off, so that by the time it comes up, there will be 2
years of counter evidence that gay marriage will not destroy the institution of marriage
as a whole and 2 years of time to build up lots of heartwarming gay marriage success
stories. I'm guessing that for every "gay couple will have an 'open' marriage" example you
can find, I could find 5 or more "gay couple with a 5, 10 or 20 year relationship (and
maybe some kids) finally is able to get married" examples. (Please don't take that as a
challange - it's just my guess, based on the few dozen capsule interviews I saw on that
first day)
Another interesting thing, is that, IIRC, Romney will be up for re-election the same year
as the amendment vote, and I think the issue will sink him. Republicans have virtually no
party existence at all in Massachusetts, except in the governor's race.* IMHO, the main
reasons for the string of Republican governors here are:
1) The Dems have failed to come up with a strong candidate that isn't beholden to the
powers that control the state legislature (or one that has any charisma)
2) There's a feeling that a republican governor helps counter-balance the almost solidly
Democrat, crony-ridden, state legislature
3) That same legislature will prevent a Republican governor from accomplishing too much
on the Republican agenda.
4) The republicans use moderates as their governor candidates
Romney is in a lose-lose situation. The national right blasts him for not doing enough about
gay marriage, while any action he does take strongly jeopardizes points 3 & 4 of the reasons
people voted for him. Even if he does nothing but voice his opposition to gay marriage,
it hurts him, becuase while Kerry gets the benefit of the doubt while saying similar things,
Romney is a Republican and so will take the full heat.
So, I'm guessing that Romney's support for the amendment will be fairly lukewarm in an
attempt to try to maintain his image as a moderate, and that will likely also be the case for
any of the few other republican office holders here.
Lastly, I think that Democrat support here for gay marriage has been quite subdued. I
suspect at least part of that is an attempt by the Dems to defuse the issue for now to
avoid damaging Kerry with it. It's win-win for them: by pushing the civil union amendment
now, they give Kerry a fig-leaf to say he supports that as an alternative to gay marriage which
he opposes. And then they have 2 years to slowly shift position to pro gay marriage as the
public becomes accustomed to the idea.
So all that said, I just don't see this amendment getting passed.
-Bryon
* I'm serious: In a recent election, Republicans were only running for office in about 4-5
of the 20 or so offices up for election! I don't even think Kerry's senate seat had a republican
opponent last time he was up for reelection.
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