All politics is local: Gay marriage is safe!
People in Spain celebrating their same-sex marriage victory in 2005; today, Massachusetts caught up.
The Massachusetts legislature knocked down the effort to try to advance a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage here. How did we win in Massachusetts? Well, many people made many different kinds of contributions.
From the New York Times today:
Senator Gale Candaras also voted against the amendment today, although she had supported it as a state representative in January. She said her vote reflected constituent views in her larger, more progressive state Senate district; her fear of a vicious referendum campaign; and the 6,800 anti-amendment e-mails, phone calls and faxes she received, one call every three minutes.
Most moving, she said, were older constituents who first supported the amendment, but changed after meeting with gay men and lesbians.
One woman had “asked me to put it on the ballot for a vote, but since then a lovely couple moved in,” Ms. Candaras said. “She said, ‘They help me with my lawn, and if there can’t be marriage in Massachusetts, they’ll leave and they can’t help me with my lawn.’ ”
More seriously, here's a lengthier statement from Senator Candaras on why she changed her vote.
1 comment:
Thank goodness. What with our right of habeus corpus gone, it's nice to see at least one state headed in the direction of advancing the protection of personal civil rights of its citizens.
I am especially impressed by Senator Candaras' decision to vote as a representative of her constituents, rather than her personal feelings. It's nice when those two cooincide, but when they don't, I imagine its a tough choice for lawmakers.
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