Honestly, I'm not terribly worried about the Defense of Marriage Amendment in Massachusetts

[xiphias]

Yeah, sure, the conservatives here are trying to get a constitutional amendment through to define marriage in Massachusetts as "one man and one woman."

But, y'see. . . .

The state supreme court gave the Lege 180 days to get this thing up and running and make it possible for same sex marriages to happen.

So, six months from now, gays will start getting married. That will be May. Damn, it's going to be a BITCH reserving function space in June. . . but, yeah, okay.

In that time, it is possible that the Massachussets Legislature will get the amendment through. Both houses. Not overly likely, but possible.

Once that happens, they'll have to wait.

For an election.

May, June, July, August, September, and November, same sex couples will be getting married. By the time that the next election rolls around, most everybody in the commonwealth will have at least one same-sex air of friends who are married.

At that point, the NEXT session of the legislature will have to vote on the amendment. And at that point, a real big percentage of the electorate will take this as a PERSONAL attack on THEIR FRIENDS. Which, of course, it is.

It's still possible that both houses of the lege will pass it again at that point, although vanishingly unlikely. But, at that point, it has to go to the people, and get a majority vote of the general population at the NEXT election.

People will, at that point, have been having same sex marriages for like two years. People will be more or less used to it by that point.

I'm not real worried.

Comments

[mswae.livejournal.com]

Hm ...

I wouldn't be surprised if the legislature could get a court order suspending the license thing pending the election, assuming that the amendment itself had managed to get through the legislature before the 180 day deadline. I'm not saying I approve of that, just that it wouldn't surprise me.

Still and all, I think we will see same-sex marriages in your state. Your constituency is ready for it, and the demographics of it are substantially less likely to modify the constitution to dodge a state supreme court ruling than other states that have done so. So here's hoping.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if the legislature could get a court order suspending the license thing pending the election, assuming that the amendment itself had managed to get through the legislature before the 180 day deadline.

I would. According to Lawrence Tribe, the whole 180-day thing is just a politeness to the lege. They didn't have to go that far, and I doubt they intend to go any farther.

[cheshyre]

I wouldn't be surprised if the legislature could get a court order suspending the license thing pending the election
Get a court order from whom? The ruling was issued by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. There's nobody higher to appeal to.

Also, ruling describes the deadline as follows: "Entry of judgment shall be stayed for 180 days to permit the Legislature to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion."

If the Legislature does not take appropriate action within that time, court observers interpret this to mean (a) gay marriage automatically becomes available to all, or (b) it goes back to the court for action, and they've already come out in favor of same sex marriage.

I think the best the opponents on Beacon Hill can hope for within the 180 days is passing a civil union law like Vt, instead of full-fledged marriage, and not everybody is sure that will be sufficient for the court's judgement.

[vonbeck.livejournal.com]

Highly unlikely for there to ba court order staying this decision bending a vote on a constitutional
amendment. The highest authority on the Mass state Constitution has ruled that it is unconstitutional
to bar same sex couples from getting marriage licenses. You can't abridge people's rights on the
chance that they might be change. Until there is an amendment to the constitution the rights
under the current version of the constitution (as interpreted by court rulings) need to be upheld.
We are not talking about laws here, but fundamental rights, as guarented buy our state constitution.

Frankly this ruling has made me very proud and happy to be a resident of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

[redbird]

Does the Massachusetts legislature actually meet deadlines, then?

The NY legislature is notorious for failing to do so: I think the last time they got a state budget in by the legally mandated deadline was during Reagan's first term as president. (We're not talking three hours late, or three days, but three weeks or three months.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

They don't have to.

They fail to do anything, local authorities have to start issuing same sex marriage licenses in six months.

[goljerp]

Does the Massachusetts legislature actually meet deadlines, then?

They're better than NY goes as far as budgets, but that's not saying too much. I think the thing with state budgets is that if there's a disagreement, delaying the thing is a way to put pressure on the other side to cave in. And if both sides (or, in NY, all three sides - Bruno, Silber, and Pataki) use this tactic...

But as Xiphius pointed out, in this case, a delay of more than 180 days doesn't help the opponents of gay marriage -- and even hurts them because one way that I can think of that they could delay the process (somewhat) would be by passing a Civil Union bill, and then hope that it would be contested in court with a preliminary injunction against any happening.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually /worried/ about the MA version of DoMA. But I don't want it to /happen/, because a) it would get legally messy and require more lawsuits and things and gunk up the court system and cost money, and b) it's not like we need any (more) laws affirming that the State is full of narrow minded idiots, even if they're non-functional laws.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The Mass DoMA isn't a law, it's a constitutional amendment. Just to be precise. And, if it was passed, it would be functional. I just don't see it passing.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Pardon my imprecision, you are entirely correct.

I, however, being a pessimist, /can/ see it happening. But I can also see it /not/ happening, especially if people keep on with what they're doing. Goooooo people!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

most everybody in the commonwealth will have at least one same-sex air of friends who are married.

Well, except for those who don't have any same-sex friends, of which there are likely many.

A.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't think that many, actually. And, of those who don't, a significant percentage will die of old age between now and 2006.

[goljerp]

There was an article in the New York Times about this within the past few months. Basically it wrote about how increasing numbers of gay couples are moving out of "traditional" gay neighborhoods into the suburbs, and raising families. This means that straight people who never would've gone to the villiage for pride weekend are living next door to Jane and Suzy and their son, or Gary and Bob and their kids. Or are praying in the same church. Or are interacting with them in other ways. These couples aren't getting in people's faces, but they are joining communities where openly gay couples hadn't been visible before. There are problems with this, of course - in the article, some people complained about a gay neighborhood in Chicago loosing its character.

[(Anonymous)]

From what I have been hearing on the radio, they can't get it on the ballot to make it a amendment unntil 2006. So there is no way that they can get in the 180 days. The whole legislature's hands are tied, there is no way they can get anything against it passed.