Marriage Equality Defended in Massachusetts

[Irvine511]

[q]Legislators vote to defeat same-sex marriage ban
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff

A proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was defeated today by a joint session of the Legislature by a vote of 45 to 151, eliminating any chance of getting it on the ballot in November 2008. At least 50 votes were needed to advance the measure.

The vote came after House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray, and Governor Deval Patrick conferred this morning and concluded that they have the votes to kill the proposal.

The three leaders - along with gay rights activists - spent the last several days intensely lobbying a dozen or more state representatives and state senators who had previously supported the amendment but signaled that they were open to changing their positions.

Because fewer than 50 of the state's 200 lawmakers supported the amendment, it will not appear on the 2008 ballot, giving gay marriage advocates a major victory in their battle with social conservatives to keep same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts.

Opponents of gay marriage face an increasingly tough battle to win legislative approval of any future petitions to appear on a statewide ballot. The next election available to them is 2012.

"We're proud of our state today, and we applaud the legislature for showing that Massachusetts is strongly behind fairness," said Lee Swislow, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, in a statement. "The vote today was the triumph of time, experience, and understanding over fear and prejudice."[/q]

[MrsSpringsteen]

Bunch o'crazies

[deep]

Because fewer than 50 of the state's 200 lawmakers supported the amendment, it will not appear on the 2008 ballot, giving gay marriage advocates a major victory in their battle with social conservatives to keep same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts.

Opponents of gay marriage face an increasingly tough battle to win legislative approval of any future petitions to appear on a statewide ballot. The next election available to them is 2012.

"We're proud of our state today.

Sad day.

I know this gay marriage experiment has been a disaster.

The gays are recruiting like crazy.

And man on boy rape is way up in Mass.



or


45 bigots had one more chance to write their names in the history books.

[Irvine511]

it's not even a quarter of the legiislator.

that's, like, Bush-level approval ratings.

[martha]

Is it ok to get a little misty-eyed at this news?

[MrsSpringsteen]

My prediction came true, I predicted it would be defeated right here in FYM last year. What do I win?


He's not gov anymore, so what's the "we"? Maybe he wants a national amendment or something...


Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate

"Today's vote by the State Legislature is a regrettable setback in our efforts to defend traditional marriage. Unfortunately, our elected representatives decided that the voice of the people did not need to be heard in this debate. It is now even more important that we pass a Constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. Marriage is an institution that goes to the heart of our society, and our leaders can no longer abdicate their responsibility."



State Senator Gale Candaras, a Democrat from Wilbraham, who changed positions and voted against the ban

"For me, what all this comes down to is this: Same gendered couples are taxpaying, law-abiding citizens, who are important community contributors, well-loved and well-respected by their families, friends, neighbors and employers. They deserve and are entitled to the same legal protections enjoyed by all others citizens of our state. This is the law of the Commonwealth, articulated by our Supreme Judicial Court in Goodrich v. The Department of Public Health, decided in November, 2003."

[deep]

Originally posted by MrsSpringsteen
My prediction came true, I predicted it would be defeated right here in FYM last year. What do I win?

that's all I got

[MrsSpringsteen]

Wow, a thumbs up and 4 bucks and I have a coffee

[martha]

Originally posted by MrsSpringsteen
Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate

".... It is now even more important that we pass a Constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage. Marriage is an institution that goes to the heart of our society,...."

Should he ask his fellow Republicans who've been divorced several times, many due to extramarital affairs, all about what an institution it is?

[Irvine511]

Originally posted by MrsSpringsteen
Wow, a thumbs up and 4 bucks and I have a coffee

$4 should get you at least a grande macchiato.

and Romney can kiss my ass.

[verte76]

This is great! Way to go!

[Dreadsox]

And this will impact the next election. Tonight they are taking aim. They need five seats and this will be a reality.

[CTU2fan]

So does Mitt Romney actually hate gay people, or does he just want them at the back of the bus? Someone please enlighten me.

Ass.

Oh & 2 snaps for Mrs. S to go with the and the $4

[martha]

What? No posts complaining about this being the downfall of society as we know it yet?

[A_Wanderer]

Funny how those posts never seem to pop up, but then this isn't the real world.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Originally posted by CTU2fan
So does Mitt Romney actually hate gay people, or does he just want them at the back of the bus? Someone please enlighten me

Nether-he just wants to be President and he thinks that's one way to get there in the Republican party. Google what he used to say about gay rights, how he was more liberal than Ted Kennedy in that area blah blah blah. That's when he was running against Ted for the Senate and he was trying to appeal to the "liberals" in MA, the people he disparages now

Personal stories changed minds

By Lisa Wangsness and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | June 15, 2007

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?

For Senator Gale Candaras, it was the 6,800 phone calls, letters, e-mails, even faxes, from her district that left no question in her mind what her constituents wanted her to do. One letter came from an 82-year-old woman who worried that one of her young grandchildren might grow up to be gay and might not be able to marry the person he loved.

Senator Michael W. Morrissey, a Democrat from Quincy, said he ignored the lobbyists and the power brokers who wanted to talk to him and sought counsel from his wife, his family, his oldest friends, and a few constituents. He made up his mind moments before walking into the House chamber yesterday.

"People's ability to be happy is fundamental," he said. "To pass judgment on that, in the end, I found hard to do."

The nine lawmakers who switched sides on gay marriage yesterday came from both parties, different parts of the state, and they traveled different ideological paths to their decision s . But in interviews yesterday, they seemed to share something in common: a desire to listen to all sides and a concern about hurting gay couples and families who they believed in many cases had experienced discrimination. The lawmakers spent hours, even days at a time during the last five months, meeting gay couples and their friends and relatives. Their personal stories made the difference more than anything else , the lawmakers said.

"I listened and I listened and I listened," said Representative Robert J. Nyman, a Democrat from Hanover who switched his vote after spending all day Tuesday meeting with constituents on the issue. "I just felt at this point, I was not comfortable putting people's human rights on the ballot."

Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Caucus, said gay rights advocates working to defeat the amendment had put out urgent calls asking the gay community across the state to communicate directly with their lawmakers, and they did.

"It made a big difference," she said. "They were telling the story of their own lives, a story that a lot of these legislators didn't really know."

Amendment opponents also benefited from a new freshman class that proved far more receptive to gay marriage than the lawmakers they replaced. Retirements, defeats, and resignations eliminated nine of 62 lawmakers who supported the amendment in January. At least four of the newcomers were thought to be supporters of the amendment, but only two of them voted for it yesterday.

Representative Geraldo Alicea, a Democrat from Charlton, is a freshman who once promised to vote in favor of the amendment. But after he was elected, he said, "I thought it was best to be open-minded."

He spent many nights over the past five months meeting with gay and straight constituents. They included a couple who had been together for 28 years, and who, before they were married, had not been able to see each other at the hospital when one of them was seriously ill.

He also spoke to a young lesbian couple who had adopted 4-year-old twins, and he said he found it difficult to imagine casting a vote that could hurt that growing family.

Representative Paul Kujawski, a Catholic Polish-American who represents a conservative district in southern Worcester County, switched his vote after months of soul-searching.

What changed his mind, he said, was meeting a lesbian couple from his district who helped him understand what it meant to them to get married after more than two decades together.

"It was nothing more than that -- wanting people to live happily," he said.

The couple came to the State House yesterday for the vote and found Kujawski in the crowd after it was over.

"There were really no words," Kujawski said. "Just hugs and tears."

Candaras had voted for the amendment when she was a House member representing a relatively conservative district with a large number of elderly people in Hampden County; now that she is a senator, she said, her new, much larger constituency made its sentiment clear to her.

Some constituents wrote saying that they had changed their minds, like the elderly woman who said she previously asked Candaras to support the ban.

"But since then, Gale," the woman wrote, as Candaras told it, "this lovely couple, these two men, moved in next door to me, and they have a couple of children and they're married, and they help me with my lawn. And if they can't be married in Massachusetts, they're going to leave -- and then who would help me with my lawn?"

Candaras said that after living with gay marriage for three years, many Massachusetts residents have grown accustomed to it, even those who once had reservations.

"It's a cultural change, and for older people, it is a difficult cultural change," she said. "But I think people are coming to understand the issue and coming to appreciate the fact that the world is changing -- and that these people deserve to enjoy . . . the same rights of marriage."

[Irvine511]

Originally posted by MrsSpringsteen

Personal stories changed minds

and this is why gay people must be out.

notions of "traditional marriage between a man and a woman" become utterly bogus when you meet any long term gay couple. you realize that it's the same fear that once led people to oppose mixed-race marriages.

[MrsSpringsteen]

I agree, and that's why I appreciated that article and think it's important.

[maycocksean]

Originally posted by MrsSpringsteen


Nether-he just wants to be President and he thinks that's one way to get there in the Republican party. Google what he used to say about gay rights, how he was more liberal than Ted Kennedy in that area blah blah blah. That's when he was running against Ted for the Senate and he was trying to appeal to the "liberals" in MA, the people he disparages now

The cynical opportunism of this man is just staggering.

[A_Wanderer]

Originally posted by Irvine511




and this is why gay people must be out.

notions of "traditional marriage between a man and a woman" become utterly bogus when you meet any long term gay couple. you realize that it's the same fear that once led people to oppose mixed-race marriages.

Gays are stealing our women