MA Statewide movement to remove the SJC 4

As you know, Rep. Salvatore DiMasi, the Majority Leader of the House, has been holding the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (and the rest of America) hostage by ordering the chairman of the Rules Committee, Angelo Scaccia, to keep it bottled up. (And Scaccia, formerly a strong pro-family advocate, has put politics ahead of principle and is following orders.)

DiMasi has agreed to meet with constituents at his office (State House, Room 370) on Tuesday evening, June 1, at 6:00 pm.

If you can get there, and live in his district (Beacon Hill, North End, parts of the South End) please give us a call (781-899-4905) or respond to this email with your phone number. It’s important that as many people as possible let him know that they WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!

This is a defining moment for all of us. Are we going to let this one man stop the people from regaining their government??

=== 2. Press Conference Tuesday by Rep. Goguen -- charges against Margaret Marshall! ===

We’ve gotten word that Rep. Emile Goguen, sponsor of the Bill of Address, will be holding a press conference to announce charges against the four SJC judges: Marshall, Greaney, Ireland, and Cowan. We do not know what these charges are (Goguen isn’t saying) but we have been told that these “will give added momentum to the removal process.”

We’ve also been told that WEZE radio will be broadcasting the press conference live, and parts of it may be subsequently broadcast nationally.

(Also, if you can be at the State House that day and can distribute some literature, let us know at 781-899-4905 or via return email.)

As we mentioned earlier, Rep. Philip Travis filed another bill of address, to remove just Margaret Marshall. Rep. James Miceli has become a co-sponsor, we’ve learned. Apparently, that bill is in the Rules Committee also.

Some “fair-weather conservatives” have said that since some legislators told them this would be easier for them to pass, we should support it. Wrong. This would clearly subvert the efforts to actually turn the homosexual “marriage” ruling back, versus just getting rid of Marshall.

We think that Jim Lafferty says it best. Jim worked in the Regan and first Bush administrations, and has managed several successful Congressional campaigns. He’s spent a great deal of time in Massachusetts and knows the lay of the land here very well. Jim’s observations on the Travis bill:

“This is the same flawed strategy which got us the civil union amendment. Moving to a compromise even before the first vote is cast is just as serious a mistake as allowing the legislature to dictate to us what is ‘doable.’ This is not legislating. If Travis or one of these guys is selling real estate, please let me know.”

What's important here is that the SJC CONCEDED that by definition marriage is (& always has been) between one man & one woman. They then went on and after citing Canadian law and the fact that they now construe marriage to be an "evolving paradigm" they proclaimed that marriage can occur between "two people".

But if they conceded, and they did concede, that marriage is between a man & a women they CHANGED & AMENDED the Mass Constitution and overstepped their authority because the word "marriage' appears in the Mass Constitution with its author John Quincy Adams intending it to mean between a man and a woman.

Here's the excerpt:

"We interpret statutes to carry out the Legislature's intent, determined by the words of a statute interpreted according to "the ordinary and approved usage of the language." Hanlon v. Rollins, 286 Mass. 444, 447 (1934). The everyday meaning of "marriage" is "the legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife," Black's Law Dictionary 986 (7th ed.1999), and the plaintiffs do not argue that the term "marriage" has ever had a different meaning under Massachusetts law. See, e.g., Milford v. Worcester, 7 Mass. 48, 52 (1810) (marriage "is an engagement, by which a single man and a single woman, of sufficient discretion, take each other for husband and wife"). This definition of marriage, as both the department and the Superior Court judge point out, derives from the common law. See Commonwealth v. Knowlton, 2 Mass. 530, 535 (1807) (Massachusetts common law derives from English common law except as otherwise altered by Massachusetts statutes and Constitution). See also Commonwealth v. Lane, 113 Mass. 458, 462-463 (1873) ("when the statutes are silent, questions of the validity of marriages are to be determined by the jus gentium, the common law of nations"); C.P. Kindregan, Jr., & M.L. Inker, Family Law and Practice § 1.2 (3d ed.2002). Far from being ambiguous, the undefined word "marriage," as used in G.L. c. 207, confirms the General Court's intent to hew to the term's common-law and quotidian meaning concerning the genders of the marriage partners."

For this to stand we must accept the fact that the SJC has the right to not only interpret the law but to now alter the Mass Constitution when it feels like it.

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