Oh, has Rick decided where he’ll be moving?
A non-binding advisory referendum to give the legislators a “sense of the state” on capital punishment. Passed something like 56-44. No legal effect at all but may convince some of the more craven members of the legislature to do the wrong thing again in the name of “the will of the people.”
“death penalty amendment” was bad phrasing on my part.
as already mentioned, it was a non-binding referendum.
Brian
One out of two? Try one out of eight, nine if you count Colorado twice. Wisconsin, Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Idaho and Colorado all enshrined bigotry yesterday, and Colorado also voted down a domestic pertner registry.
Wasn’t JRDelirious referring to the second of the 1 out of 2 as the voting for “English our official language”.
I thought I saw something last night, that showed 27 states now have “enshrined bigotry”? Does this match your total count?
Jim
Ya got it, man. As you may have noticed the second paragraph in my post does mention the wrong-way landslide on the question everywhere else.
That’s right, have contempt for those, including moderates, who disagree with you. Great strategy there, guys.
I see what gays are going through now as analogous to what blacks went through in the '50s and '60s (admittedly there’ve been less hangings, but there’s still a dragging now and again) and you damn well better believe that I have contempt for those who wanted to deny people their rights - then and now.
I’ve looked and looked for a reasonable argument against same-sex marriage. They all seem to boil down to some combination of:
1.God says gay sex is wrong
2.The existence of gay marriages demeans straight marriages
3.Straights will become gay if gay marriage is allowed
4.Straight marriages can produce children, gay marriages can’t
5.Gay sex is icky
We can’t have laws based on the teaching of a specific religion, so 1 isn’t a good reason. And some of the same religions that condemn homosexuality also condemn interfaith marriages, but our laws allow interfaith marriages.
2 doesn’t make sense- how is the validity of my marriage changed by something that someone who my husband and I don’t even know does? And marriage is demeaned by celebrities and others marrying and divorcing on a whim, but we don’t have any laws against that.
3 goes against our current scientific understanding of what makes people gay or straight- it makes as much sense as making public-health laws aimed at reducing people’s exposure to night air.
Straight marriages that can’t produce children (because one or both partners are infertile or too old to have children) are allowed, so producing children is not the purpose of straight marriage. In fact, cousins are allowed to marry in some states only if the marriage is not able to produce children. I think the idea that “marriage exists to produce children” is much more demeaning to marriage than gay marriage could ever be- marriage is so much more than pairing up to breed for some of us.
Gay sex is icky- so is old people sex, and we allow old people to get or stay married. And what’s ickier than thinking about your parents or grandparents having sex? But your parents and grandparents are allowed to stay married, or to remarry if they are divorced or widowed. Thinking about your grown children having sex is icky for some parents, but people are allowed to get married while their parents are still alive.
No explanation of why anyone would be so opposed to gay marriage has ever made much sense to me. From that, the analogy (that seems quite obvious to me) to interracial marriage, and hearing some of the rhetoric about gay marriage, I conclude that people who oppose gay marriage do so because they are bigoted. I respect your right to be bigoted, but I don’t think you have a right to use the law to force everyone else to go along with your bigotry.
Why would you expect us to show respect to people who have demonstrated nothing but contempt for us?
Thank you ever so much. Having your permission just makes all the difference.
There was one proposal back before the court ruling, but the Constitutional Convention adjourned before taking up the issue of whether to send it to the voters (defeating a citizens’ petition takes a supermajority of 75% of the ConCon, adjourning takes a simple majority). The Constitutional Convention after the court ruling ended up advancing a proposed amendment that would ban gay marriage, while setting up civil unions with identical rights (proposed amendments the ConCon comes up with on its own require a simple majority in two consecutive ConCon’s to advance the question to the voters), then defeated it at the next ConCon.
A new citizens petition is currently before the ConCon, which will reconvene in a few hours to take up the issue again (the attorney general having ruled, for whatever reason, that it isn’t a referendum to reverse a court ruling, which isn’t allowed). As it requires only 25% in favor (unless they pull the adjournment trick again), I fully expect that MA voters will have the chance to defeat the measure in the 2008 election.
Another proud Arizonan, who also voted against the marriage definition amendment. I wish the “NO” vote on official English passed, too. One victory at a time, and this was a big one.