Edward Mason’s article (“Gay-marriage advocates back L’Italien, oppose Spiliotis”) in the December 15th issue of the Salem Evening News announced the efforts of a group called, MassEquality, to prevent the election of legislators in Massachusetts who oppose same-sex marriage.
More power to them. They certainly have the right to support the candidates they prefer and go after the ones they don’t. They also have the money, having spent $1 million just in 2006 alone to further their cause.
In my opinion, MassEquality has become politically active because they know that same-sex marriage has little support in Massachusetts. This realization forces them to try everything in their power to keep you and me from expressing our point of view on the subject. They fear the results.
Do you recall how same-sex marriage slipped into this state in the first place? In 2003, four Massachusetts Supreme Court Justices out of seven ruled that same-sex marriage was okay. In a state of over five million people, we had four unelected individuals make such a crucial decision.
That decision by those four unelected judges ignited a petition drive in Massachusetts that netted nearly 170, 000 signatures. The record-breaking number of signers asked for an opportunity to have an amendment put on the ballot that if passed would say that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Our state legislature, in classic Profiles in Cowardice style, prevented the amendment from getting on the ballot. The gay-rights advocates were delighted, but should they have been? Wouldn’t a thinking person wonder about the quality of a victory that came about only because the voters in Massachusetts were denied the vote?
It still troubles me that so many legislators would ignore the wishes of thousands of people. A legislator could have persuasively argued that even though he/she favored same-sex marriage the thousands of petition signers convinced him/her that the voting public wanted and deserved a say in the decision.
Minus a popular mandate, same-sex marriage has no legitimacy. I could not write it any better than Benjamin Wittes, who happens to be gay, did in The New Republic. “Proponents (of gay marriage), including Governor Deval Patrick, argue that one cannot subject the rights of the minority to majority vote. But that can’t be right when the majority had no say whatsoever in the acknowledgment of those rights in the first place.”
I choose to believe the Bible. It is very clear early on that marriage is between a man and a woman. You don’t believe me? Try reading the first book of the Bible – Genesis.
(Appeared in the Salem Evening News December 18, 2007)
McClelland Miscellanea 