This just in: The constitutional same-sex marriage ban that was being pushed in MA was defeated 45 to 151. The proposed ban needed at least 50 votes to make it to the ’08 ballot.
This is great news.
“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.”
Hooray for MA!!
Cool!
smile
It works like a crack in the dam. First, it is unthinkable. Then it is theoretical. Then it happens: the first water leaks through, and it cannot be denied that the dam can be breached. The pressure concentrates at the leak, which becomes a hole, and the crack spreads, until the force of the flow cannot be contained; until the dam is just a bunch of concrete surrounded by leaks. And then it tumbles to the ground, and the river flows free.
Drip.
I really, really hope Mitt Romney is going to take it in the shorts from the GOP “base” over this one.
Gods, I hope so, Thomas.
WOO-HOO!!! That’s my state! I heart living here. Despite the unfortunate association with that Romney dude. Our current governor (Deval Patrick) rocks.
Yay, I love living here! Acceptance and the company of progessive granola-eating students and professionals make up for the crappy weather any day.
Yay!
I’m so glad that MA realizes that same-sex marriage is not a threat to anything. I simply cannot fathom the reasoning that makes people want to legislate same-sex marriages away.
i’m beginning to think we should have a new holiday, Loving Day, to celebrate ‘Loving v Virginia’. more romantic, and the hearts and chocolate thing is getting old anyway. it will take a while for corporate america to catch up with this one, we have about ten years before it becomes obligatory to run out and buy a card.
i’m beginning to think we should have a new holiday, Loving Day, to celebrate ‘Loving v Virginia’. more romantic, and the hearts and chocolate thing is getting old anyway. it will take a while for corporate america to catch up with this one, we have about ten years before it becomes obligatory to run out and buy a card.
I don’t know if Romney will catch heat – since Deval Patrick is now governor, and it was in some part his lobbying that helped defeat this measure. But the court decision was under Romney. Who knows.
My parents were ecstatic yesterday when I talked to them. That’s actually how I found out about this – I’ve been sick and thus not checking the news, and Dad was all “GUESS HOW AWESOME OUR STATE IS.”
This is great news . . . totally made my day.
Excellent news; proud to have lived and met my husband (who’s a native Cape Codder) there. But it’s just one step… when “marriage=marriage” for ALL, THEN the job is done!!
In other words, the Massachusetts legislature doesn’t want to give their citizens a chance to vote on this issue. Could it be that they fear the result of that vote?
No, John, it’s because it’s a civil rights issue that doesn’t belong on a ballot. If they had voted to remove the ban on miscegenation, say, 50 years ago, I’m pretty sure that measure would’ve failed. That doesn’t mean that miscegenation isn’t still wrong.