One in five

Great post Dan! It is pretty amazing that it was a unanimous voice vote in the Senate. I mean, it just shows how much the tide has turned. It’s been four years since gay marriage was legalized and people realize the sky hasn’t fallen, that giving gay and lesbian citizens their rights doesn’t take away rights from anyone else. And hopefully they also realize that these aren’t some “other” we’re talking about, but our friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members.

No argument that gay marriage is long overdue. But to hang your argument on the MA Senate’s actions, (great month they’re having!) doesn’t really help much.

Can we finally stop the charade that gay marriage was forced on us by “unelected judges,”No, we can’t, because that’s exactly what happened (and in a tortured, sophist, and totally results-oriented “opinion”, too), and no amount of ex post facto whitewashing can negate that very simple fact. And I’m saying this as someone who is pro-gay marriage.However, in holding a vote on the gay marriage ban initiative and then failing to have even 25% of the Legislature vote for sending the ban to the ballot, I would submit that the Legislature legitimized the illegitimate act of the SJC and therefore at a theory-of-government level, gay marriage now properly exists in MA.

Dan – Enjoy your blog a great deal but your “charade” comment is a long way down the street from reality. Yes, the clean up of the MSJC decision is being handled by the legislature but to pretend that gay marriage in this state was anything but judicial fiat is either blatant ignorance or blatant denial.

It’s worth noting that the California State Assembly has passed a gay marriage law twice. Both times, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it, saying it was a matter best decided by the courts. Well, the court did. Case closed. What gets tiring from the anti-marriage folks is that they don’t seem to allow any argument or process where the outcome could indeed be in favor of gay marriage. The courts imposed it here; they say the voters should have decided it. California lawmakers decided it there; they say the courts should have decided it. But any result that allows gay marriage is then attacked as flawed. Spare me.It’s also worth noting that voters in Massachusetts DID have a chance to sound off about gay marriage– it happened in November, and it was called an election. The anti-marriage people ran at least eight legislative candidates to undo the marriage ruling. They all lost.

It’s not surprising that the eight candidates that the “anti-marriage people ran” lost. Those who might oppose gay marriage in favor of say NH-style rights-wise-identical civil union, wouldn’t likely vote for a candidate whose sole reason for running was to undo the marriage ruling. Because although they may not agree with the ruling, as a single-issue it’s not compelling enough to cause people to vote for someone who might otherwise be unqualified for office. So their defeat doesn’t mean much one way or another I think. “Popular vote” is the process you have left out, because I guess, it would merely favor civil union (as in NH), as opposed to marriage. Which is apparently intolerable.

I’m concerned about this “forcing gay marriage” on people. Who has this happened to? I know a few same-sex couple who are married, but they all willingly chose to do so. If people are being plucked off the streets and forced into marriages they don’t want to be in, I oppose that.Unless you mean what’s been “forced” on you is the realization that gay folks exist and deserve equality, in which case it’s really hard for me to feel sorry for you.

Neil’s comment proves my earlier point: the anti-marriage folks will keep insisting on some other political process to vet the idea of gay marriage, until they get the only outcome acceptable to them, which is no gay marriage. If the elected legislature approves it, let the courts settle it; if the courts approve it, let the people settle it; if the people settle it– well, I dunno. Maybe the anti-marriage folks will want an arm-wrestling match or something. I also love how the anti-marriage folks, who claim to be proud conservatives in so many ways, discard strict constructionist views of the law instantly to keep hawking their cause. Popular referenda were viewed with deep skepticism by the Founding Fathers, who feared the tyranny of the majority over minority groups; that’s why no referenda are allowed under the U.S. constitution, and they’re so carefully vetted in the state constitution. If we want to re-interpret political activism, why not just discard the Legislature entirely and let everything be settled by popular vote?

You know, amid all of this talk about “judicial fiat” and “cowardly elected representatives” and gay marriage being “forced on us,” I think we’re losing sight of the fact that these are real people’s lives. We’re talking about people who pay taxes, adults who ought to have the same rights as any other citizen. And I think calling the court’s and legislature’s actions illegitimate denies how progress is made in this country. Sometimes, yes, it takes the courts or the legislature to guarantee those rights – whether it’s striking down “separate but equal” or passing the Voting Rights Act. A hundred years after the end of the Civil War, it took an act of Congress to ensure that black people could vote. If you put it to a ballot question today, would any state take away the right of African-Americans to vote? Of course not. At least I hope not. But of course, we don’t put people’s civil rights up for a vote.

Frankly, I don’t care if the law was forced on people. If we are all, as citizens, supposed to have equality, then lawmakers should enforce that, contrary to the will of the people if necesssary. I’ll bet there were quite a lot of people who thought the same thing when they were being “forced” to recognize interraccial marriages, too. In fact, I’m hoping that some of this stuff in Massachusetts and California stir up enough trouble that eventually all the states will be forced, whether or not they like it, to uphold gay marriages.