Yesterday, a friend emailed a facetious response to news that AG Tom Reilly has certified a constitutional amendment initiative to ban gay marriage in MA: "2008 will be fun."
Indeed. I’m not excited about the prospect of the protraction of the political battle over this. I actually have faith that the citizenry will, in the end, do the right thing and reject this measure; momentum is in our favor. But there will certainly be a good deal of apprehension among gays and their political allies that they won’t - after all, gay marriage is unprecedented enough, not to mention popular referenda on the issue.
But as much as I’m dreading this - there’s nothing like having your humanity debated and your identity maligned on a daily basis - I don’t think Reilly did the wrong thing. After all, there’s a difference between compelling reasons the initiative is wrong (why a legislator or governor should state their opposition to it) and legal reasons the initiative should be certified or not (the issue in front of the Attorney General). David at Blue Mass has a useful discussion of the legal issues involved in the certification. On top of this, I’m not sure it’s good long-term politics for Mass Equality to rely on obstructionist measures aimed at getting an initiative off the table. I’m no fan of the rhetoric of putting rights to referendum, but given that there’s no consitutional restrictions on doing just that, we can’t just assert that as legal principle.
One final thought: we need to tread carefully in the political fight on this. I think the middle of the road sentiment in the state is in a paradoxical position: they’re probably fine with a let-live attitude on gay marriage, but they’re pretty sick of tendentious arguments and approaches in both pro- and anti-marriage camps. I suspect our success will hinge on balancing the need to organize, persuade, advertise, lobby, what have you, with the recognition that this is not an issue a good slice of the citizenry is concerned about. Sometimes the soft sell sells best.
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