News

By Hilary White

BOSTON, June 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Massachusetts legislators face a crucial vote tomorrow in efforts to bring forward a state constitutional amendment restoring the definition of natural marriage. In 2003, gay activists succeeded in using a court case to overturn the traditional definition of marriage.

Last year, legislators voted narrowly to bring the amendment forward. On the last day of the last legislative session, the vote passed with 61 in favour and 132 against. The measure required only 25 percent, or 50 votes, of the legislature to pass. Tomorrow’s special joint session will be a constitutional convention to decide finally if the amendment will go to the people of Massachusetts in 2008 or be postponed.

The Catholic bishops of Massachusetts, who have been strongly supportive of efforts to restore legal natural marriage, have urged legislators to support the amendment. “True fairness,” they said, “involves letting the people vote on the marriage amendment to define exactly what constitutes marriage.”

While TV, internet and radio ads engage in a furious media tug-of-war on the issue, lobbyists, including pro-gay Governor Deval Patrick, are working hard to bring in the undecided votes. Since the last vote in the legislature, Patrick signalled his support for same-sex “marriage” by leading the Boston Gay Pride parade.

Speaking of the court ruling that overturned marriage in the state, Patrick said, “All the (court) did was affirm an old principle that people come before their government as equals, that if the government is going to give marriage licenses to anyone, then they must give them to everybody, even if your choice of spouse is someone of the same gender.” Governor Patrick is pledging to be available up to the last minute to help legislators “working through their concerns” over switching their vote.

“That only speaks to the inevitability of our side,” responded Lisa Barstow, spokeswoman for pro-family VoteOnMarriage.org. “They’re having a very tough time in this eleventh-hour attempt at bait and switch. And I think the arm twisting really crosses the lines of decency.”

Marriage defenders are concentrating on the argument that an institution of the importance of marriage must not be decided by unelected courts and lawsuits brought by activist organizations, but by the people of Massachusetts in a public vote.

In tomorrow’s session, 50 of the state’s 200 legislators must vote in favour of the amendment reaching the ballots in 2008 and fifty-seven have either voted for it in the past or have pledged to do so tomorrow.

If passed, the amendment would not negate the over 8500 existing legal “gay marriages” in the state, but both sides agree it will stop others from using the state’s law to attempt to impose changes in other states. 

At least 19 states have passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Massachusetts Turns in Two Times the Necessary Signatures to Repeal Gay “Marriage” on 2008 Ballot
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05112808.html

Massachusetts’ Lawmakers Finally Approve Marriage Ballot Measure
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07010306.html

For more information visit the website of
https://voteonmarriage.org/