Posted on 07/30/2002 9:09:34 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Due Process Is Dead in Massachusetts.
“It being the public policy of this Commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage in order to promote, among other goals, the stability and welfare of society and the best interests of children, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts. Any other relationship shall not be recognized as a marriage or its legal equivalent, nor shall it receive the benefits or incidents exclusive to marriage from the Commonwealth, its agencies, departments, authorities, commissions, offices, officials and political subdivisions. Nothing herein shall be construed to effect an impairment of a contract in existence as of the effective date of this amendment.”
For the last week, I have been reeling with images from the July 17th travesty in the Massachusetts state house, when a special constitutional convention met for the third time in as many months to consider a proposed amendment that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Senate president Tom Birmingham (who is running a dwindling campaign for governor of this state) had said earlier in the week and again that morning that he was going to do “everything in my power to stop this mean-spirited and hateful issue from coming to a vote.” This time, he got someone else to do his dirty work: Brian P. Lees (R-Springfield), the senate minority leader, moved to adjourn the meeting before the amendment could be addressed. 137 members voted to adjourn; 53 voted not to adjourn. Fifty votes were required to carry the issue of the Amendment to the ballot—which obviously could have carried easily, leaving the question of what a marriage is—or is not—up to the voters of this state in 2004.
More than 130,000 voters signed the Protection of Marriage Amendment petition in the fall of 2001. 76,607 of those signatures were certified. 57,100 certified signatures were required in order for the petition to come before the constitutional convention. According to the Massachusetts Family Institute, 83% of Massachusetts voters polled agree that marriage is important to the family, and 60% support defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
On July 17th, I went to the state house to be present for (I presumed) an historic vote. Before I went into the State House, I stood for about a half hour with about sixty staff and volunteers for the Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage for a nearly silent rally. Some of us stood and chatted and others held up signs that said, “Let the People Vote for Marriage in 2004.” And most of us watched somewhat warily as homosexuals and lesbians harassed members of our group. At around 1:15, I went into the State House.
I couldn´t get near the gallery. The doors were closed until about 1:50, but there must have been 750 people in the house chamber area ahead of me, perhaps 250 pro-homosexual rights supporters to the rest of us who favor traditional values. The senators entered the chamber at 2:00 pm. At 2:17, they strolled out with smug smirks on their faces. Opponents of the amendment erupted into cheers, and the rest of us into boos and hisses. Almost immediately, there was a frenzy of sympathetic media interviews with lesbian members of the Massachusetts congress, and their supporters—and then the taunting and jeering began. The Marriage Amendment, for all intents and purposes, was dead. And we all knew it.
The only pro-marriage supporter I know of who made it onto the news that night was a black woman who took issue with a sign that pronounced, “We want OUR civil rights!” When she challenged that statement and was verbally assaulted, she lost her temper and was ushered out of the building by armed guards. The whole episode was filmed; what made it onto the news that evening was the woman being taken out, loud with rage, her little boys in tow. Some of us were standing outside the capitol afterward, pondering the whole mess as we waited for busses to take us back to the places where we had gathered for this momentous day. A homosexual came along and began reviling us. We were silent in response. He then sighted the black woman and got very in-your-face with her, his nose possibly a foot away from hers. He spoke in low, seething tones. We could not hear him, but her demeanor made it pretty obvious that he was being extremely unpleasant to her. The busses came along and the woman and her children crossed Beacon Street—and he walked beside her, puffing smoke into her face and muttering at her the entire time. None of us (including I, shamefully) did anything to try to stop him.
My own involvement with the Protection of Marriage Amendment began when I signed the petition at my local grocery store last fall. I asked for copies and carried them around with me to collect more signatures, rather surprised at how many people were willing to sign it. Very few I asked did not.
After the first constitutional convention met on May 8th of this year to discuss the Amendment, as required by the Massachusetts Constitution, and then closed without a vote, a friend who works for Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage called and asked if I would contact the voters in my town who had signed the petition, and ask them to contact our state senator and representative in support of the Amendment. I said yes, and began calling a few days later. Again, I was amazed at the responses: about a third of those I spoke to, while they had signed the petition, were reluctant to call Ms Walrath or Mr. Antonioni. They expressed concerns about voicing their opinions on such a “controversial” matter to their elected officials. The other two-thirds assured me that they would.
On June 19th, the date of the next special constitutional convention to consider the Marriage Amendment, I took a few hours of personal time from work and met my friend at the State House for the vote. When I arrived at the Boston Common, the meeting place for volunteers from the Mass Citizens for Marriage, I was surprised that there weren´t more people there, including, apparently, members of the opposition. I was told that my friend was already inside, so I hurried through the security area into the State House and went to the House gallery where she and her two little sons, aged two and five, were waiting. I sat down next to them.
It was about 1:15. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 2:00.
Although there was one kind guard in the gallery, as we waited for the vote, some of the other guards became verbally abusive. One woman guard in particular was unkind to an MCM staff member seated in front of me. The guard poked her shoulder to get attention, and poked it so hard that the woman winced and rubbed it as she turned to her. The guard spoke provokingly to her, threatening to remove her if she distributed any badges, and then said that she must remove the bag of badges or be ejected from the gallery. After a moment of discussion, a male guard joined them, the staff member said she would not distribute anything (she had not done so to that point) and the guards withdrew. [Most of us in the gallery were already wearing the badges, which said only, “Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage.”]
My friend seemed uncharacteristically quiet and when I asked why, told me of an incident that had just happened to a friend of hers as she was walking into the state house. A group of homosexuals and lesbians approached and began threatening her and the others with her, tormenting them with anti-religious slurs. The attempts met with no response. One of the activists then centered on her and tried more aggressively to get her to respond, verbally abusing her until she was in tears. When she said nothing, the activist spat, “I hope your children choke and die in front of you!”
And we´re called “mean-spirited and hateful?”
At the rally last Wednesday, homosexual and lesbian members of their media (mostly unidentified members, unless we asked them) milled among us asking questions and photographing us. While I was speaking with the brave man who exposed the Fistgate scandal some time back, a photographer from the Bay Windows ("New England's Largest Gay and Lesbian Newspaper") recognized him and began snapping photos of him and then of me, standing only about three or four feet away and zooming in with her lens. She took one after another, until he asked her to stop and said he really thought two was more than enough. She went on to someone else.
Before I entered the capitol building a few minutes later, I was approached by a young man and woman who identified themselves as members of the Homosexual Communist Media. He thrust a microphone into my face and asked why I was there. I did not speak well or smoothly to them, but I did speak: I told them I was there in support of the marriage Amendment. He asked why I supported it, and I told him, and also mentioned that more than 80% of voters polled in Massachusetts felt that [heterosexual] marriage was important to the family structure, and that 60% favored defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
The young man cut me off instantly, “Oh! So you´re in favor of mob rule!”
I frowned and said quietly, “That´s not mob rule—”
“Well, then, call it educated mob rule!”
I frowned again, waved him away and said, “I have nothing left to say to you.”
Before I left him, he insisted that I take a flier for the Homosexual Communist Media. I gave him one of ours, which he refused, but instead of throwing his away, I decided to read it. I´m glad I did. It began:
“The Homosexual Communist Media is an art collective based in Amsterdam. We have just founded a Boston faction, to begin subverting American morality and social culture...” (The italics are mine.)
Had I thought a little quicker, I would have said to him,
“You´re too late. It´s happened already.”
I know what you're talking about. But, you talk about the government as though it is some alien entity which rules from afar. Did the government just spring up out of nowhere and begin dictating terms and conditions on your life? Or is it comprised of your neighbors?
It is a crying shame I actually had to spell it out. I assumed you were smart enough to figure it out on your own. I know better now.
You stated that you have to get the permission of the state (government) to marry. What is the state (government) but just other people ruling your life (ie. your neighbors telling you how to live)? Should you also need the permission of the state (government) to procreate?
Really? Then why were you feigning stupidity?
And sorry, I do not waste my time trying to answer rhetorical questions.
The law is the law. As I said before to another, if you do not like it, then you should try to get the laws changed, or just shut up.
Suppose somebody doesn't believe in God or the Scriptures. Or, suppose they believe in a different god or different religious doctrine. Then what? How would you define the limitations of human interaction? How would you form a government with somebody who holds completely different religious beliefs than you do and still live in a free society?
Ah, but you seem to have plenty of time to make rhetorical statements like this:
The law is the law.
If that isn't rhetorical, I don't know what is.
As I said before to another, if you do not like it, then you should try to get the laws changed, or just shut up.
First you said, "We do NOT have a "right" to get married..."
Then you said, "We can get permission by the state, but that is within guidelines set by the state."
Why must consenting adults need the permission of their neighbors to marry? Is is not a private matter between the two consenting adults? Or, is it necessary for the whole society to weigh in on the decision?
If you did not mean to say that people don't have the right to marry, and that they must in fact seek sanction by the state to do so, then be a man and admit you were in error.
You have the mind, heart, and soul, of a slave.
People who don't believe in God or the Bible are free to live how they wish. America protects them now and will always protect them. But they are not free to damage insitutions and force the rest of us to recognize, accept, and live by their behavior. This is what the homosexual lobby seeks to do.
The Bible's authenticity can be trusted completely. A culture cannot long survive if it attempts to reconcile two irreconciliable moral viewpoints.
What is a right?
I was going to say he has the neural sac, slime glands, and rubbery tan skin of a hagfish--but that's only a rumor. ;-)
No kidding. I cannot tell you how many people actually believe morality is defined by individual choice. How many nations held that philosophy? How many of them still exist? Pompeii and the Holy Roman Empire immediately come to mind.....
Now into ze oven viz you.
Argumentum ad Hominem isn't an argument. But, it's a pretty good indication that you've lost one.
Is it probable that you're an idiot?
And if somebody chooses not to believe that they are true how do you intend to convince them otherwise? With force?
I am sorry if that sounds harsh. I don't make up the rules.
Sounds to me like you just did.
People who don't believe in God or the Bible are free to live how they wish. America protects them now and will always protect them. But they are not free to damage insitutions and force the rest of us to recognize, accept, and live by their behavior. This is what the homosexual lobby seeks to do.
You mean the homosexual lobby wants to use the force of government to advance their ideas? Does not the religious lobby seek to do the same thing? I mean, they want prayer and Bible-study clubs in government school, they want to hang the 10 Commandments on the walls of government buildings, and they want the taxpayers to pay for it all. Is this not also wrong? Or, is it only wrong when some group you oppose wants to do it? Suppose somebody wanted to hang the Protocols of Alpha Centari on the walls next to the 10 Commandments. Would that be ok with you?
The Bible's authenticity can be trusted completely.
Some believe the authenticity of other religious documents as well. But, I'm afraid that claiming something to be true does not magically make it so.
A culture cannot long survive if it attempts to reconcile two irreconciliable moral viewpoints.
Especially if acts of evil are acted out under the guise of virtue.
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