Mass. Constitutional Convention and Gay Marriage
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts recently opened a State Constitutional Convention. Among the 8 or so proposed constitutional amendments is one to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman - a means of precluding civil marriages between same-sex couples. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's ruling that the Mass. Constitution does not preclude same-sex marriages, the legislature is attempting to keep same-sex marriages from being legal. The amendment itself would need to be passed by the next Constitutional Convention in 2006 and then be put on the statewide ballot in November of 2006 and pass to take effect. Proponents of the amendment are calling to "let the people vote". But this assumes that the two consecutive state conventions should be 'rubber stamps' on the issue when the state constitution calls for a majority of the members to the convention to vote in favor of an amendment, not merely to pass-it-on as proponents suggest. The State Constitutional Convention narrowly defeated the first three attempts at wording of an amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and in some form or other, provide for same-sex civil unions. The Constitutional Convention is now in recess and will be reconvened on March 11th to continue the process.
The convention has painted itself into a corner by attempting to craft an amendment that a majority will vote for when the only real way out of this unending convention is to not pass an amendment on gay-marriage in the first place. That almost occurred during the second session when one legislator proposed a vote to close the convention. Unfortunately, there were 7 other amendments left to consider and there were enough convention members unwilling to give up their opportunity to vote on their 'pet' amendments by voting for closure, so the vote lost by a wide margin.
This unending Constitutional Convention will only block the legislature from getting any real work done - what with billion dollar budget deficits looming for the coming fiscal year. I would suggest the leaders of the convention, temporarily bypass the gay-marriage amendment and take up the remaining amendments on the agenda at its next session on March 11th. Then after dealing with the other amendments, the Senate President can use his usual routine of 'all members in favor of closing the convention vote AYE, all opposed vote NAY, the AYEs have it' (without actually listening to the convention members responses) and bang the convention gavel closing the convention. This is a tactic - for which the Senate President has become famous - would surely come in handy at this time.
02/18/04 ( 287 )
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