Massachusetts Amendment Moves Forward

Today was the last day of the Massachusetts legislative session, and this was also the final joint session as a Constitutional Convention before the new legislature that was elected in November convenes.  And so it was the last chance for proponents of the Massachusetts Marriage Amendment to get their vote, and they got it.  At all previous Conventions since the petitions were certified by the Secretary of State as having attained enough valid signatures to meet Constitutional requirements, the leaders of the legislature, who are opposed to the amendment, managed to win procedural votes to adjourn without voting on the merits of the measure, which would effectively ban future same-sex marriages in the state.  (Affirmative votes from at least 1/4 of the legislators, that is 50 out of the 200, are required to advance the amendment to its next stage - another vote by a Constitutional Convention newly-elected - prior to placement on the ballot.) 

This afternoon, the legislators were meeting for the first time since being told by the state's Supreme Judicial Court that they had a constitutional duty to vote on the merits of any amendment presented to them with the requisite signatures from voters.  Although the court disclaimed the authority to order the legislators to vote, the unanimous opinion made clear that the tactic of voting to adjourn by which the majority was blocking consideration of an amendment that they knew had enough votes to advance was a violation of the obligations of the legislators, the constitutional drafters having evidently decided that the barriers to placement of an amendment on the general election ballot should not be too stringent.

So - this afternoon a vote on the merits was held and the measure achieved 61 votes.  Then after a recess a call for reconsideration passed by a substantial majority, but this time the measure on re-vote received 62 votes.  So it advances to a second Constitutional Convention vote, presumably sometime toward the middle of 2007, by the legislators elected in November 2006.  This group has fewer supporters of the amendment than those whose term expired tonight, but the difference may not be significant enough to keep it off the ballot. 

The soonest that it could go to the ballot would be 2008.  By then, same-sex couples would have been marrying in Massachusetts for four years.  Public opinion polls in the state show a slow but steady increase in the portion of the public who express approval of same-sex marriage, indeed a small majority say so at this point.  Perhaps in another two years the majority will have grown.  In any event, it seems possible that in a fair campaign, with the governor and a majority of state legislators (and probably a majority of the local press) supporting same-sex marriage, the amendment will be defeated by the voters.  Nothing is certain, but this past November Arizona finally ended the unbroken chain of public support for constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, showing that it is possible with an effective campaign to defeat such a measure.  (Of course, the Arizona measure was significantly different, in that its broader wording made it possible to fire up straight seniors in opposition to a measure that might deprive them of some of the benefits they derive by living together without marrying...) 

At this point, of course, the LGBT political movement in Massachusetts will focus on lobbying to get the amendment defeated at the next Constitutional Convention, but it strikes this observer that the major work should be focused on persuading the public that adding the amendment to the Constitution would be a bad idea, since it seems likely that the public will be called upon to vote, during the next presidential election year.

Comments

[On Lawn]

Thanks, I'd like to let you know I used your insightful commentary for an article at Opine Editorials. (I can provide the link if you wish)

I have a few questions that I hope you might answer for me, as we seem to be on opposing ends of this issue:

1. What is it you feel is needed by a homosexual couple more than can be given in a program such as Reciprocal Beneficiaries? What more than can be provided in Domestic Partnerships and Civil Unions?

2. Do you support neutering the definition of marriage (removing reference to gender such as "one man and one woman") for a ideological reason?

3. What is the purpose behind the state recognizing homosexual couples? And why are only homosexual couples among other non-marital combinations being considered for this proposed extension of marriage regulation?

I realize in Massachusetts, those questions might be a bit outdated as the definition was already altered. But as the definition is being revisited, and you are pushing for rational arguments people can understand, I was wondering what your position was on those questions.

[Art Leonard]

I believe that any two adults who want to form a family unit should be able to do so regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion and so forth. In other words, in my view this issue is about freedom and equality.

Our society as it is now organized is set up to privilege only certain kinds of families with a host of rights, benefits and responsibilities, presumably out of a view that it is in the interest of society to reinforce the bonds of families as a building block of an orderly and prosperous society. One of the important roles of families, of course, is nurturing and civilizing children so that they can become contributing and self-supporting members of society upon reaching adulthood.

When I look at the reasons why society privileges, benefits and protects families, I see little reason for so privileging only those families that consist of the so-called "traditional" model of a heterosexual mixed-sex couple capable of biological procreation through sexual intercourse, which is basically the definition being pushed by the proponents of the Massachusetts Marriage Amendment.

I am not stuck on terminology. If civil unions or domestic partnerships actually carried all the rights and privileges that come with "traditional marriage" I wouldn't care much about terminology. In this I differ from those who contend that every difference introduces stigma. Of course, if civil unions were open only to same-sex couples in sexual relationships, I would have problems from the equality point of view.

I think lesbian, gay and bisexual couples should have access to all these rights, benefits and responsibilities, but I also believe that any other couple should have such rights.

I have not given the same amount of consideration to the question whether the state should equally allow and privilege larger groups of adults, but I think polygamy raises a separate range of issues that should not be conflated with the issues raised by recognizing family ties of adult couples.

Raising the recent European Human Rights case of the elderly sisters living together in the UK, I also think it would be appropriate for society to accord legal recognition and rights to adult siblings who live together as a family unit. Further thought would have to be given to whether such couples should have the full range of rights and responsibilities that are accorded to married or civil union couples... A big issue.

I think that the most pressing case for extending full marital rights or their equivalent to same-sex couples arise in the context of child-rearing. I am persuaded by the Hawaii Superior Court decision from 1996 in the Baehr case, in which the court found that depriving same-sex couples of the right to marry works an invidious discrimination against the children they are raising, and that there was no rational basis for excluding those children from the many benefits that flow from having two parents who are married to each other in the eyes of the law.