Same-Sex Marriage Vote in MA Today (Maybe)

Just a quick dispatch from Massachusetts to let you know what's going on here today that might have implications for the national discussion of LBGT rights and marriage equality. You might remember that a few years ago the MA Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state constitution did not restrict marriage to heterosexuals. Among other things that have gone on since, we've been treated to the spectacle of Mitt Romney -- a Mormon descended from militant polygamists -- defend "traditional marriage". Today the survival of marriage equality in Mass. hangs in the balance, as both houses of the state legislature meet in a Constitutional Convention to decide (or not) whether a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage should go on the 2008 ballot.

The wording of the amendment would define marriage as between a man and a woman (not, as Romney likes to say, "between a man and a woman...and a woman, and a woman..."). The process for this becoming part of the state constitution reveals some of the strangeness of Massachusetts state law. It must be passed by two consecutive ConCons -- and here's the bizarre part -- only by a 25% vote, or 50 of the 200 members of the combined state Senate and House of Representatives, to be placed on the ballot in 2008 for voters to decide. The first ConCon, in January, saw the ban pass its first hurdle by winning 62 votes.

The good news is that, by most reliable accounts, that support is down to approximately 57 votes; most of those votes are in the House, where House Speaker Sal DiMasi is a strong supporter of same-sex marriage (as are Governor Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray, who presides over the convention), and the legislative leadership is likely to implement a "win-or-wait" strategy; i.e., if they don't think they have the votes to defeat the amendment, the vote will be postponed. (Amendment proponents lost one vote yesterday when Representative Anthony J. Verga, a Democrat from Gloucester, slipped and fell in a State House hallway yesterday; he will not be there for the vote, if it happens.)

If opposition to a same-sex marriage ban is so strong in the Legislature, why not put it to the voters?

For one thing, same-sex marriage bans have been overwhelmingly successful with voters, resulting in laws or constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage in at least 27 states (I'd love to have exact details, but I'm at work, and the Mass Equality site is blocked; please check their site for good info).

For another thing, it's of questionable legal and moral value to put matters of human rights to a popular vote. How would the country have voted on segregation in 1954? This, as with all such matters, will ultimately be decided on the basis of the U.S. Constitution, probably by the Supreme Court.

Thirdly, a referendum will invite a hate campaign fueled by the usual out-of-state nut cases, in a presidential election year when we should be moving beyond the hot-button, social-issues poison that has crippled the nation for long enough, and after Massachusetts residents have mostly come to terms with gender-neutral marriage (as long as they're not encouraged to express their homophobia in the privacy of the voting booth).

I patiently explained all of this to my state legislator last week (she had never heard of Fred Phelps and www.godhatesfags.com, so maybe that's my contribution to the cause), but she -- a Republican who has run unopposed for the last few cycles -- voted for the amendment last time, and will again today (if she gets a chance), despite what I now know was a song and dance about "sleepless nights deciding which way to go".

In the time that homophobes told us the institution of marriage would be destroyed, it's been more threatened by Britney Spears and Kevin Federline ("it's about the children", same-sex marriage opponents say) than by Pat and Chris from Provincetown. Please keep your fingers crossed for us here in the Bay State, and check the news to see how it came out.

Update: Wow!! In the time it took me to get this posted, enough arms had been twisted, and they called for a vote. The same-sex marriage ban has been defeated, 151-45.