The Gay Patriot had this to say regarding yesterday’s vote in the Mass Constitutional Convention which denied the voters the opportunity to vote on the legal definition of marriage in the Bay State in 08′.
I’m ambivalent on the issue because I believe that legislatures (rather than courts) are the appropriate institution to decide a state’s policy on marriage. And here, an elected legislature (though under special circumstances) did vote on the policy. So, I should favor the decision. But, it troubles me that they only acted because the state Supreme Judicial Court (the highest court in the Bay State) had mandated marriage, taking it out of the legislature’s hands, leaving only the state’s complicated constitutional amendment process as a means of recourse.
Two things struck me about the reaction of the gay organizations, first the zeal with which the gay groups lobbied to prevent the people from voting on this issue. I think it’s silly to call this a “Vote on Rights†because the issue here is not about protecting people’s freedom, but about determining which couples the state recognizes (and privileges) as married.
The second issue which struck me, which is a point I have been making for as long as I have been blogging, is the inability (or refusal) of the gay organizations to talk about this all-important issue except as one of rights. As I was working on my prior post, The Malcontent’s Robbie alerted me to Jonathan’s Rauch’s thoughtful review of David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage. In noting that gay-marriage foe David Blankenhorn “succeeds†in making a serious case against gay marriage, Rauch (yet again) makes a strong case for gay marriage.
entire post here
To me this entire issue has been less an issue about same-sex “marriage” (even though I am an adamant opponent of it) and more about the intentional circumventiion of the constitutionally proscribed legislative process. It is commonly stated that “gay marriage is legal is Massachusetts.” Not true. The only organized body who has the constitutional authority and jurisdiction to make and amend laws is the legislative branch of our civil government. Neither governors (the chief executive) nor jurists have the constitutional authority to “make” laws.
In 2003 four unelected judges in the MSJC found a “right to same sex marriage” in the “penumbras and emenations” of our constitution. But their interpretation did not make “gay marriage legal” as many politicians, members of the press, and pundits have asserted. Couts can’t “make laws.”
And that is what is so troubling about this whole process which is that our elected officials allowed the judiciary to, in essence, make law from the bench. Our legislators are supposed to represent “we the people” and most importantly have sworn an oath to uphold and defend our constitution and the rule of law. Not allowing “we the people” the opportunity to make the very laws by which we live is an egregious violation of our fundamental constitutional rights that should freighten all citizens of the commonwealth- gay or straight.