“In 2002, he was opposed to gay marriage AND to civil unions.”
And he OPPOSED a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited both, which lots of other folks — including his own wife and son, who signed the petition — knew full well in advance was needed.
Later, he supported an amendment that banned homosexual marriage but constitutionally ESTABLISHED homosexual civil unions.
Then as he moved one year closer to announcing for prez, he abandoned that one and endorsed another amendment that banned both. Helping ensure in the process that no amendment was passed by the Leg twice as required to make it to the ballot.
Then, in the absence of constitutional protection, it was Romney — without a court order or legislative authority — who ordered that marriage licenses be changed from designating “husband” and “wife” to “Party A” and “Party B” or some such, and that local justices of the peace perform homosexual “marriages” or resign.
Romney, via unsupported use of his executive authority, is the father of so-called homosexual “marriage” in Massachusetts.
The court ruling was that the word “man” must be interpreted as “person” in the existing law. People who argue that they didn’t change the law don’t understand the law or the court ruling, or do understand but would rather make a point than be right.
See my other post.
A lot of people were opposed to constitutional amendments before the court ruled in a way that was totally wrong. It’s hard to argue both that the court was wrong, AND that a constitutional amendment was needed. If the court was wrong, it means the constitution did NOT need to be modified, and even now is only being modified because the judges didn’t correctly read the existing constitution.
As to the amendment later, the legislature was clearly not going to allow people to vote on an amendment. Romney supported what he could get through the legislature. Our legislature tried to modify the words between passages for the same purpose, but since a majority of our legislature supported the ban it didn’t work.
In Massachusetts, the legislature did NOT WANT to ban same-sex marriage. So they played games, and since they had a supermajority on their side they could do whatever they wanted. Romney did his best to keep them in line and to put pressure on them, but in the end there weren’t even 50 votes (a minority requirement) to put the measure on the ballot. In fact, the OPPONENTS of the ban actually liked the addition of civil unions, they put it in to win those last few votes to block passage.
See, while they didn’t have the supermajority to block a ban on marriage which allowed civil unions, they DID have a MAJORITY who wanted gay marriage, who could ADD civil unions to the bill. And they did.
If Romney had come out OPPOSED to adding civil unions, the conservatives would have been furious, the measure would have passed anyway, and we’d be where we are today. Romney couldn’t stop them from changing it because a majority wasn’t supportive of the measure in any case.