It’s big news, the defeat of the anti-gay-marriage consitutional amendment in the legislature, but the most encouraging thing was how it wasn’t big news. Instead of the tight votes and baited breath of the first time around, we had a resounding defeat of the measure, even if you back out the votes who voted against it because they suppport a more stringent ballot initiative in the works.
As Blue Mass Group notes, "Today’s lopsided vote does hold out a ray of hope that even if the signature-gathering is successful, maybe 50 votes won’t be available in the legislature." Point 08 Acres, meanwhile, asks the question on my mind:
According to MassEquality, at least 115 of the legislators voted no specifically because they favor equal marriage rights. That means that in order to stop the 2008 ballot initiative before it reaches the voters they would need 35 members to either switch positions in 2006 or 2007, or be replaced by pro-marriage legislators in the 2006 election. That seems like a tall order, but not impossible given how long two years is in political time. Don’t forget that the thirty-nine legislators who voted in favor of this amendment are now on the record as supporting rights for same-sex couples. It is not difficult to imagine that at least some of those folks could be convinced that it doesn’t matter whether we call those rights "civil unions" or "marriage". Given that and the swing in support for marriage equality just over the past year, it’s not impossible that opponents could fail to get their required fifty votes in either 2006 or (more likely) 2007.
I’d phrase the issue another way though: we have three major groups: those for marriage equality (c. 115 legislators), those opposed to any marriage equality or civil union equivalent (c. 42 legislators) and those who wanted a civil union compromise (39 legislators). The open question we have is how many of the compromise candidates the antis can pluck off, that is how many voted for a compromise because they really don’t like gay marriage period and wanted something to stop it (though those folks really did peel off in large numbers this time around) versus how many think restricting civil unions is going too far, either for themselves or their constituency.
It’s reasonable to think the anti-marriage-equality can find 8 legislators in two successive votes, but it’s not a done deal. That, in itself, is encouraging news because it takes a lot of the political momentum from the anti-marriage group and forces them to spend their resources on legislative lobbying they perhaps thought they didn’t need to do. I suspect the anti-forces erred in thinking they could get too much, an absolutist position against any state recognition of gay and lesbian couples. Time will tell.
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