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The future can work
As Massachusetts girds to protect gay marriage, the California legislature approves full marriage rights for all

The news that the California Assembly has staked out historic high ground and become the first state legislature in the nation to approve equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples is welcome on its own terms.

Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is now on the spot. The musclebound Hollywood action-movie star and husband of the Kennedy clan’s Maria Shriver ran for office on a platform that favored same-sex civil unions, which now seems old-fashioned and unequal in light of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision granting gays and lesbians the same marriage rights enjoyed by heterosexuals.

If Arnold plays to his base of Republican voters and vetoes the legislation, he reveals himself to be — at least in the eyes of his progressive supporters who crossed over to back him — a "girlie man."

If Arnold does the right thing, and signs the legislation, he puts California in the history books. Vermont’s landmark civil-union provision, passed in 2000 — and adopted in April by Connecticut to avoid grappling with the issue of full same-sex marriage — then becomes as quaint as a buggy whip: snappy to some, but inadequate for the 21st century.

Next week, when the Massachusetts House of Representatives combines with the Senate to meet in a Constitutional Convention, two measures will be on the floor. One would ban gay marriage and substitute civil unions in its place. That’s the work of Senate president Robert E. Travaglini and minority leader Brian Lees. The other would not allow same-sex couples even the limited protection of a civil union and would restrict any and all marital rights to couples of different sexes. That’s the work of a coalition of reactionary conservatives. Not surprisingly it enjoys the support of the compromised and morally bankrupt leadership of the Catholic Church.

These measures would place ballot questions before voters in coming years in order to nullify the SJC’s marriage ruling. Both measures are without merit. Both should be defeated.

The Phoenix believes that all adults have the right to marry, just as all citizens have the right to vote. It’s basic, inherent, and fundamental.

Slavery was once sanctioned in this nation and women were denied the right to vote. Overcoming those obstacles to freedom and fairness was once called progress, a concept that is admittedly unfashionable in a nation dominated by Republicans and personified by George W. Bush. But we live in Massachusetts. We should embrace our heritage, which holds that it is possible to progress and evolve into something different, something that transcends the past. It’s progress when more people enjoy all freedoms and rights.

As the Constitutional Convention approaches, two key legislators have changed sides, abandoning their support for civil unions and embracing the idea that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry, just as straight men and women do. Under any circumstances, that would be good news. But with the outcome of the proposal close, it’s a particularly hopeful sign that the two, Senate majority leader Frederick Berry of Peabody and Senate majority whip Joan Menard of Somerset, are members of Travaglini’s leadership team. We urge others to follow their example and cast their votes for a more humane and equitable future.

As we go to press, Attorney General Thomas Reilly is scheduled to rule whether the most draconian of the two bad measures to be considered by the Con Con meets the constitutional standard to be put to statewide vote.

Reilly, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, has in the past flip-flopped on important issues such as the death penalty and gay marriage. If he allows the provision limiting marriage only to men and women, he will have made himself unfit for his party’s nomination.

THE STATE OF THE UNION

This excerpt is from the Wall Street Journal of August 31: "Although the U.S. economy grew robustly last year, the income of the median household slipped a bit, wages of full-time workers fell, the number of Americans living below the poverty line rose and more Americans went without health insurance, the Census Bureau said."

Anyone who doubts that Hurricane Katrina has helped shine a badly needed spotlight on the gap between those in this nation who have and those who do not should keep these facts in mind.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.

 


Issue Date: September 9 - 15, 2005
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