Lawyers argue suit to bar gay marriage ballot question

Boston.com ^ | 05/04/2006 | Denise Lavoie

[Panerai]

After the state's highest court made Massachusetts the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, opponents saw putting the issue to voters as their best shot at circumventing the court's decision.

A ballot question seeking to amend the state's constitution by defining marriage only as the union of one man and one woman was drafted, the question was certified, and more than 124,000 signatures were collected.

But supporters of same-sex marriage filed a lawsuit challenging whether the ballot effort is legal.

The state Supreme Judicial Court -- the same court that legalized gay marriage through its landmark 2003 ruling -- will once again take up the issue as it hears arguments Thursday in the challenge to the ballot question.

In their lawsuit, gay marriage proponents claim Attorney General Tom Reilly should not have certified the ballot question because the state constitution specifically bars any citizen-initiated amendment that seeks to reverse a judicial ruling.

[olderwiser]

So now it's unconstitutional for citizens to petition...to amend the constitution?

[Always Right]

In their lawsuit, gay marriage proponents claim Attorney General Tom Reilly should not have certified the ballot question because the state constitution specifically bars any citizen-initiated amendment that seeks to reverse a judicial ruling.

Looks like that provision may need to be removed. If that provision is left in, it effectively take way the right of the people to alter their Constitution. It gives the judiciary supreme power to trump the people.

[Darkwolf377]

I guess we won't be hearing the cries of "democracy" and "the popular vote trumps the electoral college" from the dims here in Massachusetts for a long time...

[ardara]

We now get a clearer picture of why Ted Kennedy Keeps getting elected in Massachuetts.He fits in very well there.

[sgtbono2002]

Certainly you will be hearing the cries of the popular vote trumping the electoral college, but only when it works in favor of the Democrats.

Certainly if the laws in Massachusetts defy allowing citizens to petition against unjust or plain wrong judicial rulings it is the law that should be changed , not the right to petition.

There is no such thing as "marriage" between two people of the same sex. They cannot marry any more than you can connect two male or two female electrical plugs together .

[Darkwolf377]

We now get a clearer picture of why Ted Kennedy Keeps getting elected in Massachuetts.He fits in very well there.

I have the feeling some people here just keep voting for him because if they confronted the truth about him--personally and professionally--and tossed him out they would have to admit to having been snowed by him for 40 years.

[ardara]

I feel sorry for the conservatives living in Massachuetts.

[Darkwolf377]

You should! And thank you! :)

The most recent conversation I had with another conservative here was with a Christian who works for the party, who was explaining why he's Pro-Abortion.

I kind of just sat there and said "Your idea of being Conservative and mine are clearly not the same."

[SteveMcKing]

It is definitely cognitive dissonance at work. Instead of admitting personal mistakes, people embrace them. They then willfully repeat the mistake hoping to validate whatever bad choice they couldn't cope with as a one-time disaster in their lives.

Next thing you know, they're announcing that they're gay for example (by virtue of said repetition), and proud of the fact that they suck ----.

[Darkwolf377]

The thing that gay people around here (Boston) can't seem to understand is how this method of giving them "rights" is such a contradiction to their professed beliefs. The same folks who think W. was "selected not elected" don't have ANY problem with the Mass. court just DECIDING that gays can marry, something that's never been a right in this or any of the States.

And they KNOW they're dodging, but their attitude seems to be "I don't care, whatever, let's get on to discussing the issue."

But that IS the issue. I really have no problem with gay people, couldn't care less about them. But they have decided that this is good law JUST BECAUSE. Period.

Gay marriage and abortion: Two of the most divisive issues in our country, and no one who supports them seems to grasp that the PROCESS by which they were made legal is the core of the problem.

[mtbopfuyn]

We the people don't count anymore?

[jmaroneps37]

Anti gay "marriage" measures are moving forward in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Florida, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It will be helpful in Arizona, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. As ballot questions they will help us in many of these states. The rat knows this and will fight hard to keep these off the November ballot. We win just by having them on the menu come Election Day.

[ProCivitas]

The case against this homosexual pseudo-marriage rubbish is two-fold : 1. Procedural ethics, 2. Substantive policy. And none of the pro-family case has to rely on religious teachings.

1. Procedurally, the legitimate policy-making process of government is via the legislature or by direct Citizen Referendum. That legitimate process was subverted by the 4 leftist degenerates on the Mass SJC. Citizens directly or by their legislature are free to recognize anything we like as 'marriages', just as any individual or other organization is free to do so. If we chose to only accord public benefits of marriage to people between ages 30 and 40, or only to polygamists, that would be the public's prerogative.

2. On Good Public Policy grounds, then, what are we Citizens persuaded of re marriage? Well, that a loving marriage between one man and one woman is psychologically healthy and life-affirming, and models the functionally natural and healthy way by which human life develops and continues for another generation. If a person hasn't managed to develop a long term loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex, they are probably neurotic, however much they may have compensated for it. Homosexuality, like other fetishes, is counterproductive and pointless. It comes under the heading of what we used to call "unhealthy friendships", where the sublime of friendship lapses into the ludicrous of perversion and fetish. Homosexuals aren't so much aesthetically attracted to their own gender as they have an aversion to the opposite sex. It's unhealthy and anti-social and something it's practitioners need to change. At any rate it's no sound basis for a household raising children, where the parental role-models of Mother and Father are crucial. So, homosexual households are unlikely to receive the public approval of, or public benefits from our Citizenry. And there are no 'civil rights' for sexual perverts to adopt children or receive artificial insemination. The only 'civil right' in this entire topic is that of two or more competent individuals to sign a contract with each other. That doesn't obligate any of the rest of us to approve of that contract or accord it the public designation/status of "marriage".

Illegitimate Leftist judicial tyranny will be defeated in due course.

[little jeremiah]

List. Good comments on thread!

[DBeers]

Homosexual Agenda Ping!

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[DBeers]

Thank you for the ping.

[little jeremiah]

It's the least I can do!

BTW, DHarry is off duty for the time being, not at home even. So if people freepmail him he won't be able to read it.

Gotta run, can only sneak onto FR for a minute here and there.

Thank you so much for your work in carrying on this pinglist. It is vitally important that people know the truth about homosexuality - what it is, its causes, that there is a way out, AND what the goals and methods of the homosexual activists (and their supporters) are. What a terrible danger the "gay" rights movement is.

[gidget7]

A. This is a bogus case. The clause they refer to does not refer to any laws made.

B. The judges actually only referred it back to the lower court and gave MA a certain number of days to address the issue, as I remember. Granted, knowing the legislature wouldn't address it, but regardless of that, it is the voters who have been discriminated against, or better put, denied their right to vote on the issue. NOT the homosexuals who picked up the ball and ran with it illegally, and weren't prevented from doing so by the Governor or his council, who incidentally are the only ones with any authority over marriage in MA.

[L.N. Smithee]

Chief Justice Margaret Marshall asked Assistant Attorney General Peter Sacks if his same legal rationale would apply to slavery -- that if citizens wanted to vote to allow it, could they vote reverse the court's ruling that slavery is unconstitutional?

Sacks said a citizen initiative hypothetically could be used to legalize slavery, but he also said that would be an unlikely scenario because it would violate other provisions of the state constitution as well as the federal constitution. "Obviously, the subject matter is very troubling," Sacks said.

Whaaat?

First of all, Marshall, ultraleftist wife of retired NY Times ultraleftist pundit Anthony Lewis and author of the opinion that made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts, knows good and well that there's no way a slavery initiative could ever make it in Mass or anywhere else in the United States, and besides, it's already covered by the Federal Constitution, maddoggit!

I know that Sacks has the responsibility to maintain decorum, but if I were him, I would have to restrain myself from saying something in the realm of "That's a red herring, and you're just trying to cast people who know you're a fraud in the worst possible light. Either that, or you have never heard of a guy named Abraham Lincoln. He's on the five dollar bill, Maggie, which is what you probably paid for your fake law school diploma!"