Issue Date: 11/02/2006, Posted On: 11/2/2006 Open letter to Bay State lawmakers from Bay Windows Next week, just two days after an election in which voters will select a new governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and cast ballots in dozens of house and senate district races, lawmakers will gather for a resumption of the constitutional convention (ConCon) that was recessed on July 12. The only item on the agenda that anyone truly cares about is one that seeks to amend the state constitution in order to prohibit lesbian and gay couples from marrying. Plenty of people -- Catholic bishops, editorial writers at the Boston Globe, political bloggers -- believe that the only honorable way to deal with this amendment is by taking an up-or-down vote on it. We feel differently: the only honorable way to deal with this amendment is by killing it. We don't care how it's done: Vote it down, adjourn the ConCon, fail to make a quorum. Whatever. Just make this thing go away. Lawmakers owe the LGBT community nothing less. Through organized groups like MassEquality, the Freedom to Marry Coalition and the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, LGBT people have volunteered for your political campaigns. We have raised close to a million dollars for you. We have urged our friends to vote for you. Thanks in no small measure to our efforts, not a single one of you who has supported marriage equality has lost your seat. And now, two-and-a-half years after we first started marrying in the Commonwealth, we are sick and tired of our rights being subjected to public debate every six months. Put an end to this on Nov. 9 by killing the anti-gay marriage amendment. To those who are concerned about process, we have one question: Which process, exactly, are you concerned about? The one by which this measure is before you? The one that saw unprecedented fraud in the signature gathering process? The one that saw Catholic bishops order priests to encourage parishioners to sign the petition? And saw them remove from duty those priests who refused to partake in an action that sought to impose Catholic doctrine on all of the Commonwealth's citizens? If you take that process into consideration, then it's clear that this amendment shouldn't even be dignified with a vote. Our state constitution provides for several options for dealing with initiative petitions. Focusing on only one of those options --an up-or-down vote -- isn't just bad strategy. It;s deeply insulting to LGBT people. There isn't a single lawmaker in this state who would seriously entertain a proposal to ban interracial couples from marrying. Twenty years from now, the notion of voting on the civil marriage rights of lesbian and gay couples will be seen as equally offensive. In the race to appease the good government pundits huffing and puffing about process and giving voters their due, many seem to have forgotten the history of initiative petitions in this state. In the last 100 years, lawmakers have considered nine amendments to the constitution initiated by citizens' petitions. Only four were voted on by lawmakers. Three advanced to the ballot: a 1938 measure calling for biennial budgets and legislative sessions (which voters approved); a 1974 measure allowing highways taxes to be used for mass transit projects (which voters approved); and a 1994 measure calling for graduated income tax rates (which voters defeated). The fourth, a 1934 measure on biennial budgets and legislative sessions, was defeated by lawmakers. The other five citizens' petitions were never voted on. In 1982, a measure that would have changed the way the state budget is handled died when lawmakers adjourned the ConCon without taking action on the amendment. In 1990 two proposals -- one dealing with reproductive rights and another with education -- died when lawmakers failed to make a quorum for the ConCon. In 1992 a measure on term limits for elected officials died when lawmakers adjourned the ConCon. And in 2002, a measure seeking to amend the state constitution to prevent same-sex couples from marrying died when lawmakers adjourned the ConCon. Yet some of you believe that the only way to decisively end this debate is by voting on it. Or by allowing voters to weigh in. Some of you compare this debate with the ongoing battle over abortion. If Congress had legalized abortion, you say, the issue would have been settled long ago. Therefore, there must be a vote on marriage. Keep in mind that the issue of abortion will never be settled; those who believe that abortion is murder will never change their minds. And please stop comparing our sexual orientation with the choice to terminate a pregnancy. A much more apt analogy is the cultural battle over the legalization of interracial marriage. That fight was fought and won in the courts. No serious person would suggest that the public should vote on the issue today because some members of the public still harbor racial prejudice. At this juncture, we need our political allies to step up and start leading. We ask House Speaker Sal DiMasi to do just that. Senate President Robert Travaglini controls the ConCon; by permitting the recess vote, he showed that he is willing to work with the majority of lawmakers who support the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples. But we wonder whether DiMasi is working with him. DiMasi has long been considered a friend of the LGBT community -- not just for his early support for the gay civil rights bill, but for his principled votes during the 2004 ConCon when he was one of just 11 lawmakers to vote against every single amendment put forward that would have prohibited same-sex couples from marrying. Yet under his leadership, state representatives actually failed to approve the recess vote by a 13-vote margin. We ask that the state senators and representatives who have been coordinating strategy for Nov. 9 -- state Sens. Ed Augustus, Jarrett Barrios, Robert Havern and Stan Rosenberg, and State Reps. Mike Festa, Byron Rushing, Carl Sciortino and Alice Wolf -- not support a vote on the anti-gay marriage amendment unless you know with absolute certainty that you are going to win. To do anything less -- perhaps with the idea in mind that you can make up for a defeat during the next legislative session when the amendment will be back before you -- would be utterly irresponsible. If you think the pressure to take a vote on the anti-gay marriage amendment is fierce now, what do you think it will be like the next time around? We ask that the socially moderate to conservative lawmakers who have taken highly public positions against this amendment -- lawmakers like Reps. Eugene O'Flaherty and John Rogers and Sen. Jack Hart -- honor the spirit of your pledges by backing any strategy to defeat this amendment. During the July 12 ConCon, you all supported a parliamentary maneuver to defeat a proposed amendment calling for universal health care. Please don't tell us that you believe parliamentary maneuvers are okay except when they're being employed to defend civil rights. We ask that all of you keep the greater good of Massachusetts in mind on Nov. 9. Since 2004, no issue has occupied more of your time than same-sex marriage. You've taken an astonishing 16 votes on the matter. A very solid majority of you back civil marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. Do you really need to keep debating this? We are dealing with a crisis in management of the Big Dig. We have fewer police and firefighters employed today than we did prior to Sept. 11, 2001. The high cost of living in the Commonwealth continues to drive people away, threatening our economy and our future. Is continued debate on marriage really what's best for our state? Finally, when you convene the ConCon Nov. 9, we ask that you show us some respect. First, we've earned it. Second, we are not the ones debasing marriage by manipulating public debate on the topic for political gain. Nor are we the ones dismissing deeply held religious beliefs by pretending people of faith hold only one point of view on marriage. Don't prolong this debate. You know what you have to do. Please do it. BACK