MA gay marriage legalization is on the verge of becoming permanent

[Lexingtonian]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/09/28/finneran_out_dimasi_in_and_a_new_agenda_likely/

Prospects shift as DiMasi takes over for Finneran

Foes of gay marriage see blow to amendment hopes

By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff  |  September 28, 2004


The effort to bring a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to voters in November 2006 suffered a major setback yesterday with departure of House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and the elevation of Salvatore F. DiMasi, whose arrival is expected to shift the Massachusetts legislative agenda to the left on social issues such as gay rights, abortion, and stem cell research.

A key legislative backer of the proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage and establish civil unions yesterday all but declared defeat, saying that Finneran's exit from Beacon Hill was the final straw in an effort that already was in trouble because the state has legalized same-sex marriage with little of the uproar predicted by opponents.

"It is pretty much over," said Senate minority leader Brian P. Lees, a Springfield Republican who cosponsored the amendment with Finneran and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini. The House and Senate, sitting in a constitutional convention, must vote a second time in the next session before it could go to the voters on the 2006 ballot. "In fact, there will be a question as to whether the issue will come up at all," Lees said. He said the issue has faded to the "back burners of Massachusetts politics," because few problems have surfaced with the implementation of the Supreme Judicial Court's decision to legalize gay marriage.

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Gay activists hope to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment if it comes up in the next session, but it is far from certain it would come up at all. DiMasi and Travaglini could shelve the amendment and not call for a vote at all. Or they could bring it up for a vote, and same-sex marriage supporters such as DiMasi could attempt to persuade lawmakers to vote against it.

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In addition, several lawmakers who had voted for the amendment have privately said they too may switch their positions, particularly since the SJC decision has been implemented smoothly and the controversy had faded from the public's concerns.

Pollings show that the Travaglini-Lees proposed constitutional amendment (which bans gay marriage proper but creates All But Name civil union rights) fell under 50% support by Massachusetts voters in mid-summer and continues to decline and chances of its ratification have grown ever worse. So for the past two months the principal reason the anti-gay marriage side has hoped to prevail was that Tom Finneran was going to keep the thing alive at the legislature's required second vote on T-L next spring. Without Finneran to keep T-L alive, the great preponderance of political forces is now to kill it off. The state legislature hates dealing with the matter at all, the majority of voters is over all the objections raised to gay marriage, Mitt Romney has no political credibility on social issues in the state.

It has been ten months since the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts issued its verdict legalizing gay marriage in the state in the verdict of Goodridge et al. v. Department of Public Health. The furore was great indeed. But it did the anti-marriage side no good. The governor's efforts to undermine it have failed, the efforts to bar it in the federal courts have failed (with a final rejection by the US Supreme Court of the appeal in Largessdue this month), a state legislative attempt to bar it by a state constitutional amendment is done for, and the voters are not going to bar it.

With a few more formalities remaining, gay marriage is now permanently instituted in Massachusetts. With minimal prospects of a ban of it on the federal government level, it takes its place as an American institution.

So hang in there, don't let those state constitutional amendments popping up elsewhere get to you; they cannot stand for long anymore. There is a great deal more work ahead, of course, but victory is now only a question of time.