What’s surprising about the recall initiative is just how isolated the four legislators have become even among the forces of same-sex-marriage opposition. Miceli and Goguen insist that they’ve experienced nothing but positive feedback about the removal campaign from such far-flung places as Alaska, Nevada, and Texas, as well as here at home. "My constituents are folks like myself who believe very strongly that the judges are way out of line on this issue," Miceli says. Yet they readily acknowledge that they’re facing "an uphill battle" at the State House. (Neither Travis nor Carron returned repeated phone calls from the Phoenix.)

But even that seems something of an understatement. After all, not only have the recall bills failed to gain any traction among prominent gay-marriage opponents on the Hill, but Governor Mitt Romney has flat-out dismissed the campaign, saying that he’s focused on advancing the proposed constitutional amendment barring gay marriage instead. (The amendment must pass one more legislative hurdle next year before it can be placed on the November 2006 ballot.) And leading opposition groups like the Coalition for Marriage and the Massachusetts Family Institute have declined to endorse the bills. Ray McNulty, the spokesperson for both organizations, confirms that the groups do not officially back the recall because "to do so would be to move beyond the coalition’s directive" of pushing the anti-gay-marriage amendment. However, McNulty stresses that the coalition is not "discouraging our members to support the recall initiative if they choose."

Obvious legislative allies of the four lawmakers — such as the half-dozen or so of their colleagues who have gone to federal court in an attempt to thwart the Goodridge ruling — are also keeping their distance from this latest strategy. Steven Panagiotakos, a Lowell senator who is one of the 11 legislators behind the pending federal appeals case, tells the Phoenix that he believes "there is some merit to having a discussion" about the resolution targeting Marshall because of her prior public comments favoring gay legal rights. "I think in this case the impartiality of Marshall could be questioned," he says, so the legislature should debate the matter. But Panagiotakos hastens to add that he has not put his signature on either removal measure. And he comes across as reluctant to go so far as to remove a justice. "I’m opposed to gay marriage," he acknowledges, "but I’m not so opposed that I would support this resolution if it’s not warranted. It could happen that, after a full debate, I don’t agree to go along with this."

Even the Article 8 Alliance seems to have given up on the recall initiative. When asked how the bills of address are coming along, Brian Camenker, the group’s coordinator, offers up this observation: "People are bored with the whole thing. Legislators have had gayness pushed in their faces so much they just want to try something else for a while." Camenker and his colleagues have contacted dozens of House and Senate members to drum up support for the bills, but the vast majority, he says, "just aren’t that interested."

OF COURSE, there is one obvious reason for the lack of interest in the recall initiative: "It’s a bad idea, period," says Festa, the Melrose representative. He can appreciate that the four legislators who have signed on to the removal bills "don’t want to leave any stone unturned." But as far as Festa is concerned, "Their efforts have devolved into something pathetic. The idea that the SJC should be subject to public or political whim is just abhorrent."

Such a notion extends well beyond the controversial issue of gay marriage; indeed, it strikes at the heart of the democratic-constitutional concept of an independent judiciary. Today’s gay-marriage debate could become tomorrow’s abortion debate — or, for that matter, any hot-button legal question. If legislators go after the SJC justices for Goodridge, what’s to stop them from responding the same way to other rulings? Notes Richard Van Nostrand, the president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, "To go down this path sets a dangerous precedent. The question would become, ‘Can judges ever be independent? Or will the public take steps to basically fire judges with every unpopular decision?’"

Besides, legal experts contend that the recall initiative represents a misuse of the bill-of-address process. Although the power to remove sitting judges is outlined in the Massachusetts Constitution — which states that "the Governor, with consent of the Council, may remove [judges] upon the address of both Houses of the Legislature" — it is rarely exercised. According to the Article 8 Alliance, lawmakers have successfully ousted judges from the bench only six times since the state constitution was adopted, in 1780. In most instances, the bill of address was used to respond to judicial misconduct, such as extortion, bribery, and perjury — not to second-guess judicial opinion. Says Van Nostrand, "I’m not aware that the bill-of-address process has ever been used as a club to remove judges for having made an unfavorable position."

Goguen’s allegations of judicial misconduct against Marshall certainly don’t seem to hold weight. The fact that in 1999 the SJC chief justice spoke about developments in gay legal rights — in her native South Africa, mind you — doesn’t prove that she had made up her mind about the legality of same-sex marriages, as Goguen and Article 8 members claim. Nor does it mean that she was required to recuse herself from the Goodridge case. "Unless Chief Justice Marshall addressed the very issue in Goodridge [in her speech]," explains Lawrence Friedman, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in state constitutional law, "it would be very difficult to show that she was in some way biased toward the plaintiffs and, therefore, should have recused herself."

None of this is to say that anyone is treating the recall initiative as a joke. Gay-marriage advocates may not be organizing to fight the bills, as they did with the anti-gay-marriage amendment, but they’re keeping a close eye on them to ensure that they never emerge from the Rules Committee. Says State Representative Byron Rushing, a prominent backer of civil-marriage rights for same-sex couples, "People don’t want these bills to get any kind of hearing whatsoever. We don’t want to do anything to help them along by saying, ‘We need a hearing.’" Some State House insiders privately worry that House Speaker Tom Finneran — an outspoken foe of Chief Justice Marshall — could use the recall initiative as a way to "spook the court" and send a message to the justices, but such fears border on the alarmist. Chances are the bills will remain stuck in committee until the legislature’s formal session ends next month, at which time they will die. "If there is no support for these bills," Festa says, "I cannot conceive of why the leadership would want to drop a tactical nuclear weapon on the floor of the House."

For now, the four legislators behind the recall initiative appear undeterred. They continue to push the Rules Committee to release the bills of address so House members can debate the idea. They continue to reach out to colleagues in an attempt to drum up more public signatures. The fact that so many gay-marriage opponents have yet to come on board, Goguen says, "tells me that I’ve got to do something. Never mind the flip-floppers. Do something and find a way to stop this [gay marriage]."

But in the end, he and his colleagues may turn out to be the only die-hards left.

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com