Sharilee at the Worcester County Republicans blog writes about the arrogance of the Massachusetts Legislature as it thumbed its nose at the concept of the democratic republican form of government during last week’s Constitutional Convention and (non)debate over the protection of marriage amendment.
Here’s the interesting part, the vote to adjourn to November was quite close: 100 to 91. If they had actually taken up Amendment #20, the voter petition on defining marriage as between one man and one woman, we easily would have won. And it appears that the majority party leaders were painfully aware of this as they did everything they could to drag things out. Rep. George Peterson (Grafton) did his best to try to keep things moving in a fairly timely manner by requesting a recess only until next Monday. But it didn’t fly. Thanks for trying, George.
So now we’ve got a chance to unseat the obstructionists. Find a marriage amendment supporter (amendment #20, not the fake #19 that Sen Brian Lees and his cohort came up with to confuse the issue), and support their run for office as loudly as you can. Give money, give time, write your current legislators and tell them if they’re not on board, then you’re supporting their opponent.
We have a chance to change the core of our legislature this fall. All we need is to win 10 races and they dynamics will change.
I wish I could be optimistic and think that pro-marriage conservatives could win 10 races this year, but I think we’re well on the way to becoming a one-party state in Massachusetts. I think things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better, because it’s going to require the average Joe to start experiencing the pain and discomfort himself before he’ll realize he needs to change his behavior.
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Sharilee is naive and wrong.
10 votes won’t do it.
Harriett Stanley, lesbian legislator from Newbury voted to have the vote. The Democrats looked at who was in a race (former Bruin’s Captain Terry O’Reilly’s son opposes Harriett), and they bartered on who would vote to have the vote and who would vote to delay.
If there we 10 more Republicans, the result would be the same.
P.S. If you want to support a candidate who can win in MA, visit my guy:
http://www.lonniebrennan.com
I’m his campaign manager, and his opponent opted to delay the vote. (Donations by PayPal accepted)
We need to get aggressive. Fighting for legislators is fantastic.
But our rights are being surrendered BY US. We need to stop complaining and start aggressively making it difficult for public officials to ignore the law. The SJC ignored the law . . . and got away with it. They should have been removed from office. That is our remedy under our Constitution. Indeed, it is our only real remedy. The legislature (including Birmingham, Swift and the rest of the crowd back in 2002) ignored the law . . . and got away with it. Romney ignored the law (and continues to on a daily basis by handing out marriage certificates when Massachusetts law DOES NOT PERMIT them to be issued . . . and he is getting away with it, every day, while scoring points for president standing next to Cardinal O’Malley. O’Malley should be scolding Romney in public, every opportunity he gets. Failing to do so, is causing the results we have gotten.
Each of and every public official who violates the law needs to feel pressure from “we the people” and from our leaders. When we see them on the street, we need to reprimand them (so far I have seen Judge Ireland, Tom Birmingham, and Michael Flaherty – city councillor – each have been thoroughhly reprimanded). We need to find out where they hang out and vigorously and fearlessly discuss their illegal actions with their friends. We need to find out who gives money to them (and at the same time calls themselves Catholic or Christian) and rebuke them. We need accountablity and we need to stop surrendering. This problem is our fault, no one else’s.
Imagine if you were in a position to help stop same-sex marriage, but your friendship with say Mitt Romney clouded your efforts to stop it. Is that not a problem? Is it not a huge conflict of interest? Imagine if you were a lawyer being paid to stop same-sex marriage, but your other interests require Mitt Romney’s help. Is this not a problem? How can we say we are against same-sex marriage and not be in favor of every legitimate approach to ending it? And if we have a conflict of interest, how can we not recognize it and either step down and honestly acknowledge the conflict or notwithstanding our close friendships with politicians with the power to end this, vigorously fight for what is right? Is it because we don’t want to admit to ourselves that we really are not against same-sex marriage? Is it that we really don’t care that each of our 3 branches of government have violated the law in some way in regards to this issue? Does democracy matter, not to them, we know the answer to that, but rather does democracy matter to us?
I would argue we are simply fooling ourselves. We have not lost. We have given up. We have surrendered. And we won’t admit it.
Bravo!
Sharilee, as you can tell, some of us are involved.
There’s over 33(!) Republican candidates for rep or senator this year. Here’s the website that contains a comprehensive (I think) list of them…
gopnews.blog.com
Is there a list of Dem candidates too?
Com’on folks, get active!
Good point, Sharilee!
There are still good Catholic Democrats out there also, along the Ray Flynn lines. Remember, that party was THE Catholic party until the early 70’s.
I’m a registered Democrat, but I am campaign manager for the Republican candidate for 18th Essex.
You must vote for the person, not the party.
En guard!
Speaking of Ray Flynn, his son, Ed, was running for a seat on the Boston City Council. He was the only Catholic running as pro-life and pro-marriage (i.e. one man, one woman). Sounds good, eh? Unfortunately he was also for a $10 or $11 minimum wage!!!
However, the gloves are off now. In the rep and senate races this Fall, if my rep and senator had opponents, I’d vote for the opponent, just on general principal. Get rid of the incumbents (except the good ones, Marie Parente, etc.)
Joe, I agree with you, but I’d like to vote for the party too so that we really have a two-party system… This one party system isn’t pretty.
Lynne: Agreed. Time to round up the mighty men.
All: Lynne made a good point off line. If someone doesn’t have a candidate to support because they are running unopposed, perhaps they should throw their support (and $) towards an out of district candidate.
Sharilee (I love your name): It would be nice to have a two party system. However, can you really call the Lt. Gov. a Republican? I wish Mitt would stay. Maybe he will change his mind. Maybe after this whole Big Dig thing, the Atty Gen will repent. I’d vote for him if he were pro-life/pro-marriage. With all of his faults, he has shown courage.
Oh, I met the guy taking on Tierney. Nice guy, good heart, true conservative… however, doesn’t present well and will get killed in media and in debate.
I’ll vote for him, but I think he’s toast.
Well said!