aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Friday, November 10, 2006

Marriage in Massachusetts

The constitutional amendment process in Massachusetts is slow by design, it fosters deliberation. A good thing:

Massachusetts’ lawmakers on Thursday took a giant step toward killing a proposal to ban gay marriage in the only U.S. state where it is legal.

With protesters on both sides of the debate rallying outside the gold-domed statehouse, lawmakers voted 109 to 87 to delay a decision on whether to back a constitutional amendment that would have given voters a chance to ban gay marriage.

Gay rights advocates cheered the move, seen as a crushing blow to opponents of gay marriage who had gathered 170,000 signatures in a petition that asked lawmakers to put the culturally divisive issue before voters in 2008.

By adjourning until January 2, the last official day of the legislative session, the Democratic-controlled legislature virtually guarantees the proposed amendment will not be taken up and therefore be killed.

A good time to remember the Ed Helms’ wonderfully funny, relevant, perfectly targeted sketch on The Daily Show from one year ago. Given the Comedy Central GooTube takedown (and no new player yet) you can find it on The Malcontent:

BRIAN CAMENKER, anti-gay-marriage activist: I could sit here and I could probably, you know, find some way of connecting the dots to gay marriage to all of these [adverse effects] if I had enough time and I did some research.

HELMS: Yeah, why take time to do the research, when saying it is so much faster? Besides, the statistics are clear-cut. Now that gay marriage is legal, Massachusetts ranks dead last in illiteracy, 48th in per capita poverty, and a pathetic 49th in total divorces.

You’ll laugh out loud.