Mass. gay marriage opponents sue lawmakers (with a nasty twist)

A rather nasty turn, trying to make them personally liable to get the lawmakers to vote their way

against a segment of society that they hate. The constitution is a shield for all citizens, not a weapon. Their hate has no bounds; their position has no basis or rationale. They want this to be the land of the bible, not the land of the free.

That's a sword that cuts BOTH ways, you homophobic nutcases.

christo-fascist organizations, claiming they are attempting to remove the constitutional rights of a segment of American citizens without just cause?

I'm sick of these people claiming that the public gets to "vote" on MY rights, but I don't get to EVER vote on the rights of heterosupremacist white males...and THEY are a minority.

I'm just wondering is all.

Is there any requirement that the Legislature, in convention, rubberstamp every single constitutional change presented to them? If not, then the bigots are being even more ignorant and desperate than usual.

They voted to cancel the whole session and cancel all legislation, for anybody and anything, rather than vote and lose. See my post below.

Good. Let them waste more of their money.

I think it's called an election.

A recess is a recess, not a vote for or against anything. How pathetic are these losers?

The lawsuit is idiotic; the constitutional issues behind it are not. I don't know if everyone understands how we managed to defeat the anti-SSM amendment in MA. This wasn't about losing or winning a vote. The MA Legislature stopped any votes from being held at all.

As much as I admire the outcome of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, it was protocol and Roberts' Rules of Order-style maneuvering which flatly contravened the intent of such a session. Brief background: The Constitutional Convention convenes to address proposed changes to the Constitution, voting to send petitions approved by a certain numbers of voters/legislators on to a general election. The pro-gay folks did not have the votes not to defeat the anti-SSM proposition. Therefore, the lawmakers voted to recess (but not adjourn, thus nullifying the Governor's ability to call them back into session; since they are only recessed, not adjourned, there is nothing for the Governor to call back, and they voted to "recess" until the day before the next general session, ensuring that there won't be another ConCon). The amendment was not defeated.

That's it. They bailed. They essentially canceled the session, or, to use a more accurate if less polished phrase, they took their ball and went home. It's like playing baseball, the opposing team just hit a grand slam that will win them the game, so you call the game "over" before those winning runners can make it to home plate. They simply found a way to not have to do business that day. Many non-gay related bills also lost their chance to be advanced to the voters, and these bills which had already been passed at the 2004 ConCon, as the anti-SSM bill did, now have to start all over. Among the many issues to be discussed at this year's Convention was a Right to Health Care. This bill is now dead, too (they also are suing the state, demanding that their amendment get the chance to be voted on). Progressive causes took a hit, even if a horrible anti-gay measure was avoided.

This was a great result, but if it doesn't trigger an ends vs. means discussion, it should. When people petition their representatives to make a change to their Constitution, or pass a law, or anything else they have the right to do under the constitution, they kinda expect their lawmakers not to play hooky on the meeting day and sh!tcan everything they expected them to vote on. This horrendous outcome, caused by the fundamentalists' insane hatred of gay people and SSM, is not something to be happy with. We dodged a bullet, but not in a way we should be proud of.

Consider it this way: if HRC got enough signatures on a marriage equality petition and sent it to a GOP-controlled state legislature, and the GOP legislature voted to go home until next year, thus invalidating everything that had been worked on, for that issue and every other issue, until the next calendar year, would that seem fair? We would be screaming that their hatred of gays is so extreme that it led to them shutting down then government. How is this any better?

This isn't just losing on the votes; this is refusing to conduct business and let people vote at all.

as far as what if the shoe was on the other foot? Let me know when HRC submits a petition to the LegisLature asking to forbid straights from voting, or driving, or breeding or maybe even getting married and i'LL be the first one to demand they puLL any trick possibLe to stop this from going through.

Your opinion is emotional, and understandable, yet doesn't see the big picture.
* This means that the MA state legislature felt that it was justified to thwart the democratic process for every other issue on the table. Progressive, liberal, conservative: everything was canceled. Those hard-working activists that spent YEARS trying to get Universal HealthCare for the residents of MA? Fucked. You want to tell them that since you were going to lose a vote, they had to give up their issue? Those people who petitioned their government for change, on any issue, and followed all the rules? Fucked. This is just as anti-democratic as anything the right-wing has ever tried to do to us. We should not be "proud."
* This allows the right-wing to make a lot of noise "confirming" what they claim they have known all along: that the "homosexual agenda" and those who back it will stop at nothing, tear down any barrier, wreck any democracy or democratic institution in order to get what we want. It's not true, but this action makes it harder to refute the charge. It also gives weight to their charge that nothing matters more to gay -right supporters than gay-rights, that we are single issue people, and that legislators who favor gay rights will ignore any and all duties and loyalties to advance their gay rights agenda.
* All of the above allows the right-wing to wrap itself in the flag even more, to claim that our democracy and rule of law is under threat of destruction from gays. They can milk this for a long, long time.

Tell me why the above is something about which to be prideful.

but those other issues are only delayed. If it takes killing all current legislation to stop something horrendous, then I'm all for it. The good stuff will come back around.

I think Sniffa does see the big picture. He's just not as wordy about it.

:thumbsup:

i aLso happen to Live here so i know what's up with the con-con, and anyone saying that the peopLes' wiLL have been yadda yadda constitutionaL process bLah bLah are bigots, no Less; even couching it in big words doesn't justify deniaL of equaL rights.

That short enough for you?

That's the only choice in Massachussetts? Is that why California doesn't have SSM? Oh, I forgot. The people's representatives voted for it and the Executive vetoed it because such an important decision belongs in the Courts.

But people on this thread have decided that short posts=wisdom, so I was trying to speak the natives' language. If it's not true, then maybe somone will need to actually respond to the issues raised by the MA ConCon and not rely on bumper-sticker level thinking to avoid dealing with a situation.

can send a referendum to the people for a vote, but not the other way round. What is the case in Massachussetts? You make it sound as though the people's elected representatives do not do business as a legislature, but only in Convention. The Constitutional Convention is a distinct entity from the legislature, isn't it? And the elected representatives of the people of Massachussetts could not defeat SSM in session, so someone tried to get around that by bringing it before a Constitutional Convention. This is what it looks like from Virginia, and my understanding was that the Constitutional Convention needn't take up any business that the members decide not to take up. These are my impressions from what sifts down the coast: that the Governor tried to get around the will of the elected representatives by attempting to force them to take up the issue in Constitutional Convention and they declined to do so.

Constitutions are supposed to be difficult to amend.

Difficult to amend. It takes a Yes vote in two successive ConCons, 2 years apart, to get something to the ballot. The Healthcare and other initiatives had already gone through YEARS of planning and voting only to get shitcanned.

"my understanding was that the Constitutional Convention needn't take up any business that the members decide not to take up." This doesn't make any sense. They can't "decide to take it up" if some of the convention attendees cancel the damn convention.

And no one here has said anything more pithy, any deeper, anything with more substance than "life sucks in politics." The next time you want to rail against the Republicans for how they changed the rules in DC to make voting faster, eliminate the need or time to read bills, shut the Dems out of the planning and running of government, rubber-stamped everything Bush ever did, and basically destroyed the process of checks and balances: Just remember; you defended all those things with the casual "Politics is ugly." Good to know your principles run so deep that "it's ok when we do it." Sad.

"let's blame gays for everything bad that happens." You just get paid by the word, apparently.

Yes, we want to expand healthcare, and we want to move on a whole lot of other progressive causes too, but we won't throw ourselves under the bus to do it. When you can talk about issues without blaming us, or sacrifising us maybe you'll get a better reception.

""let's blame gays for everything bad that happens." "
Could you play the victim card any more? Carry any violins anywhere underneath that sack cloth and ashes?

I never blamed gays for anything that happened. Ever. Don't try to turn this into an anti-gay thing, especially since you'll have to go through the self-hating door to do it. I'm gay and proud to be so, but I'll never be so weak or victmized that I think that my actions (or those of gay rights supporters in general) are above reproach. THAT is "special rights," and we all know we're looking for equal rights, not some special status, right?

Just to summarize: when I pointed out how the ConCon went against democratic principles and shut down business rather than lose a vote, I've now been accused of blaming gays, getting paid by the word, and SACRIFICING gays. Great, deep, on-the-merits responses, everyone, truly. I can't imagine why the right-wing accuses gays of whining about discrimination.

If you can't handle the constitutional issues, or don't understand what we did, or think that doing the wrong thing is right in this occasion, then say so. But don't play such high school games as "blame the messenger." It's beneath you and should be beneath this board.

Shit!!!

I don't know how you read into my comments all the material you are criticising me for. I'm sorry I didn't make sense to you. Are you quite sure I defended all those things in my brief remarks? It would be most unlike me.

Didn't you know about the cool Subliminal Message Translator that Skinner's selling as a fund raising item?

I only ordered the tote bag and the smoking jacket.

It even comes in a rainbow motif, for us queer DUers.

It's not about criticizing Republicans. We're not even TALKING about Republicans' actions in MA. Democrats did these things, and Democrats should have to defend them.
I know this is DU and everything, but let's not not kneejerk into assuming it's all about the evil GOP all the time, hmmm?

Republicans would use it against us. I'm not going advocate that we take the high road here.

Whether or not a vote is actually held is irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is whether or not the Legislature, in convention, approves or does not approve a proposed amendment. As long as the standard operating procedures are observed -- and it appears that the Legislature has been very careful to stick to the SOPs -- exactly how the proposed amendment fails to get the Legislature's approval is irrelevant. There is apparently nothing at all in the process to force a vote; if there is, a vote will be taken regardless of any procedural moves.

According to everything I've heard, the lawsuit is nothing more than a bunch of whiney brats screaming about having to eat their broccoli or get no dessert, and will be treated as such by the state Court.