Defending Mitt Romney, part 2

Gregg, I feel compelled to respond to your latest anti-Romney post. The kindest thing I can say about the notion that it was Mitt and not the courts that brought gay marriage to Massachusetts is that it is revisionist history.

Yes, Mitt’s abortion position has been changed. His position on gay marriage however, has been consistent. When the decision came down, Romney said this,

”All along, I have said an issue as fundamental to society as the definition of marriage should be decided by the people. Until then, I intend to follow the law and expect others to do the same.”

More recently, he said this,

“I have been an ardent defender of traditional marriage, and have fought same-sex marriage in every way I could conceive,” Romney said. As governor, Romney pushed for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The facts demonstrate that Romney did indeed do everything he, legally, could do to stop gay marriage in Mass. Did he ultimately succeed in preventing gay marriage? No, he didn’t. The reason isn’t because he, Sean Hannity and Hugh Hewitt are secret shills for the “gay agenda”, it’s that he had limited options, based on the very state constitution you point to as Romney’s Holy Grail to strike down gay marriage.

The fact is that Romney is severely limited by the very state constitution that you hold up as the source of all his alleged powers to stop gay marriage. The state attorney general, as the state’s chief legal officer, determines legal policy for the commonwealth. Not Romney. Romney tried to do several things in the courts, but he was blocked by the AG,

Associated Press,
April 15, 2004
Mass. Gov. Seeks to Stop Gay Marriage

Democratic Attorney General Thomas Reilly last month rejected the Republican governor’s request to seek a stay from the Supreme Judicial Court until November 2006, when voters may have a chance to weigh in on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and legalizing civil unions.

The man Romney hopes to tap as special counsel is retired state Supreme Judicial Court Justice Joseph R. Nolan, who has called the court’s November ruling legalizing gay marriage an “abomination.”

The attorney general, as the state’s chief legal officer, determines legal policy for the commonwealth.

Would a pro gay agenda politician select a special counsel who believed that court’s ruling was an “abomination”? Would he? Doesn’t that indicate to you that Romney was serious about doing what he could through the legal process? It does to me. There is a big difference between what you want Romney to do and what he is able to do.

Romney tried to do many things, in some cases he succeeded. For example, Mitt was very strong in seeking to restrict out of state couples from coming to MA for gay marriage licenses. He went to court and he won,

PBS Newshour
March 30, 2006, 3:50pm EST
COURT RULES OUT-OF-STATE GAY COUPLES MAY NOT MARRY IN MASSACHUSETTS
Gay couples from states where same-sex marriage is banned may not marry in Massachusetts, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday.

In some cases the outcome was less than fully satisfying. Mitt won these battles, but lost the war,

Boston Globe
December 27, 2006
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that it had no authority to order the Legislature to vote on a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage, but the justices gave Governor Mitt Romney a symbolic victory by scolding lawmakers for shirking “their lawful obligations.”

Boston Globe
June 29, 2006
Lobbying intensifies on gay marriage
Romney, O’Malley press for vote on a ban
Governor Mitt Romney and Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley called on the Legislature yesterday to hold a scheduled vote next month on a proposed ban of same-sex marriage, amid indications that gay-rights advocates are prepared to use procedural tactics to kill the measure.

They got their vote, not the outcome they wanted. Again, Mitt was not passive in this, and he certainly was not Imposing Gay Marriage on The Citizens of Massachusetts

Here are more examples of Mitt taking positions you would seemingly support,

Romney backs new effort to prohibit gay marriages
Proposal for ballot excludes civil unions
By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff | June 17, 2005
Governor Mitt Romney yesterday endorsed a grass-roots effort to pass a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2008, abandoning his support for what he called a ”muddied” compromise measure that would also ban gay marriages but allow gays to enter into civil unions.

Romney Files Suit Over Gay Marriage
Romney files lawsuit after legislators recessed before vote on issue
November 26, 2006 Outgoing Massachusetts Governor W. Mitt Romney announced last week that he would file a lawsuit with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) in an attempt to put an amendment banning gay marriage to a statewide referendum.

Where’s the acknowledgement that Romney did these things? The idea that “Mitt Romney, Not the Mass Supreme Judicial Court, Imposed Gay Marriage on The Citizens of Massachusetts” is unbelievable, literally.

Your claim that Romney has the constitutional authority to define marriage, is not a sound legal reading of the law,

By Frank Phillips and Kathleen Burge, Globe Staff, 3/30/2004

“The governor can act regardless of what the legislators do,” said Ronald A. Crews, a spokesman for the Coalition for Marriage, a group that has called on Romney to seek a stay of the SJC’s decision until voters have decided the issue in 2006.

Crews said lawyers for his coalition believe that Romney has the constitutional authority to define marriage. He said the state constitution is one of the few that involves the governor in marriage issues. Chapter 3, Article V, allows the governor a role in determining “all causes of marriage.”

“We believe the governor has the law behind him,” said Crews.

But many constitutional scholars reject the notion and say Romney’s legal maneuvers will not sway the high court. They say the governor’s powers under the Massachusetts Constitution regarding marriage are trumped by its equal protection language.

Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, said those requirements “must, like all other parts of the state constitution, be enforced by the governor in accord with the authoritative construction given to them by the SJC.”

Tribe said the argument that the SJC delay implementation of its decision until the issue goes before voters in November 2006 is “speculative actual prediction” that voters will support an amendment that has only won initial approval from lawmakers. The amendment won’t make it on the ballot until a second vote by the Legislature in its next session, beginning in January.

“Piling prediction upon prediction to ask the SJC for an unprecedented 2 1/2-year extension of a half-year stay already granted by the SJC . . . seems far-fetched in the extreme,” Tribe said.

“Not only would such a further stay be unprecedented in its duration, but denying people the fundamental right to marry the partner of their choice purely on the gamble that this right may be rolled back by the electorate some 30 months hence would represent a step unprecedented in character.”

Here are some other attempts to block gay marriage that have been heard and rejected by the courts,

PBS Newshour
May 13, 2004
JUDGE BLOCKS LAST-MINUTE BID TO STOP MASS. GAY MARRIAGES
A federal judge Thursday rejected an 11th hour attempt by conservative groups to prevent Massachusetts from granting the first state-sanctioned gay marriage licenses beginning next week.

“The Supreme Judicial Court (of Massachusetts) has the authority to interpret and reinterpret if necessary the term marriage as it appears in the Massachusetts constitution,” U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro wrote in his opinion.

PBS Newshour
Nov. 29, 2004
Supreme Court Lets Stand Massachusetts High Court Ruling on Gay Marriages
The U.S. Supreme Court opted to stay out of the Massachusetts gay marriage fight for now, deciding on Monday not to hear a challenge to the state court’s decision legalizing same-sex unions. The justices rejected efforts by those opposed to the state court’s ruling to consider their appeal, but offered no comment on the reason for their decision.
This is the second time the high court declined to intervene in the Massachusetts dispute. Last May, justices refused to block clerks from issuing the first marriage licenses.

Associated Press
May 7, 2004
SJC denies lawmakers’ motion to vacate decision on gay marriage

BOSTON – The state’s highest court Friday unanimously rejected an appeal by 13 state lawmakers to reverse its November decision legalizing gay marriage in Massachusetts as of May 17. The lawmakers had argued that the Supreme Judicial Court lacked jurisdiction in the case under the state Constitution. Instead, they argued, the Legislature and governor are empowered to determine marriage laws. The court ruled Friday that the motion was untimely, because the case had already been decided; that the same arguments had been raised by others and rejected during the court process; and that the assertion that the court had no jurisdiction was erroneous.

Repeatedly, the courts have heard and rejected the arguments on gay marriage in Mass.
Some of your other proposed solutions included the “Bill of Address”, of which you said,

When the Massachusetts’ Supreme Court imposed gay marriage on the citizens of the Commonwealth, Romney could have exercised a “bill of address” to impeach the activist judges. But he didn’t.

First of all that is up to the legislature, not the governor. The legislature, apparently, had no interest,

Foes of gay marriage try long shot
Bill seeks to remove four of SJC’s justices

Twenty-eight days before the Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage goes into effect, diehard opponents will turn today to a radical, long-shot strategy: a bill to remove the four justices who penned the historic ruling.

The lone sponsor of the measure — Representative Emile J. Goguen, Democrat of Fitchburg — said he sees the “bill of address” as a tool to pressure members of the court to reconsider their landmark 4-3 decision or risk losing their judgeships.

“I’m going to be in tomorrow to file the bill,” said Goguen, 70, who strongly opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions. “I’m going solo for now, but I will circulate it to all the legislators.”

Secondly, there is a reason that the “bill of address” is so inappropriate,

Richard C. Van Nostrand, president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, said that the bill of address route has been invoked rarely for a reason. “We don’t want to go down a path that would cause judges to fear removal from their position for making unpopular decisions,” Nostrand said.

So on and on it goes. Your mind is obviously made up about Mitt Romney. What I have attempted to do is demonstrate that Romney is not the guy you claim him to be. The idea that “Mitt Romney, Not the Mass Supreme Judicial Court, Imposed Gay Marriage on The Citizens of Massachusetts” is demonstrably and factually wrong.

He’s done what he could through the legal process; he has spoken out aggressively against gay marriage, consistently. That is not enough for you, but it is for me, and I don’t even agree with him on this issue.

I have no problem with gay marriage and wish that it would come to a vote because I strongly believe it would pass in Massachusetts and we could finally put this issue to rest.