I just got back from the rally outside the State House. It’s quite a different scene this time around: a sunny spring day, less tension in the air, and about half the number of protestors, with only a fraction of the anti-gay crowd. No out of state buses this time.
Inside the State House, the convention has just given approval to the Travaglini language - in effect ruling out the likelihood that other amendments will be considered. If this fails the final vote, the floor will be open to other amendments, but they will then first have to pass multiple readings like this one did. Sure, two more days are scheduled but at some point time will run out. (CORRECTION: The Phoenix reports that if this one fails, the issue is considered dead at this convention.) I don’t yet know the vote tally, but it seems that the Senate president has the discipline to push this through. Still, expect the MassEquality-friendly leglislators to now withdraw support for the final vote on the amendment in order to keep gay marriage legal. Who knows how the final votes will fall.
Meanwhile, the big story of the day seems to be the anti-gay video shown in Mass in some Catholic parishes this last weekend. Amy Hunt, blogging at the Globe’s website, and Adam at Boston Common, both have a description of it, or if you can be patient with the slow server times you can watch it yourself. It’s truly a vile piece of work, juxtaposing middle-class lesbians with a dying elderly woman in her hospital bed in ways that would make D.W. Griffith, in his Birth of a Nation prime, quite proud. And it’s quite rich to get a lesson in what the civil rights movement really meant from a woman whose voice is whiter than Doris Day’s. Best is the implication, in Adam’s summary, that “Homosexuals hate democracy and have a secret conspiracy that controls politicians like puppets on a string.” I keep waiting for my invitation to join the velvet mafia, but it hasn’t come.
The Church should really be ashamed for peddling this crap.
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