Thank you….

Mass. Lawmakers Reject Anti-Gay Amendment

Massachusetts lawmakers on Thursday took less than a half hour to kill bid to amend constitution to ban gay marriage. 

Because the marriage amendment was citizen-based it required only 50 votes.  The final vote was 151 – 45. That means the issue cannot be put to voters in 2008, and will force supporters of the measure to begin collecting signatures all over again.

If proponents of the amendment do gain the signatures needed the measure would again have to go to two consecutive sessions of the legislature. 

The earliest it could be put to voters would be 2012. With public opinion polls showing Massachusetts voters becoming increasingly comfortable with same-sex marriage it is considered unlikely any amendment would be approved. 

Going into today’s joint session of the legislature it was anyone’s guess how the vote would go…

I was so deathly worried about this.  They only needed 50 votes to get it out there.  And I could easily see it passing with a simple majority vote, even if a majority of voters weren’t in favor of turning back the clock.  The haters are enthusiastic in their hate.  Support for our rights is often in word only.  It could have happened.  Massachusetts could have cut off our ring fingers, even if a majority of its people weren’t really all that interested in cutting off our ring fingers.  All they needed was fifty votes out of two-hundred.  But in the end, they could not manage even that.

It was because they’d had a chance to see people, to see loving, devoted couples, apart from the scarecrows that the haters have been waving at them for decades now, that this happened.  Because of that, I think many of them simply could not in good conscience remove the rings from our fingers after all, despite what the haters were screaming at them.  Thank the courts for that.  Somewhere, whether it was in Massachusetts or another state, same sex marriage had to be ushered in by the courts.  Because until people could see for themselves the substance of our lives and our hearts, and our devotion to our mates, all they would know about us, was what the haters keep on screaming at them.  The wall of prejudice had to be broken by the courts somewhere, because the statehouses simply do not stray very far from the prejudices of their voters. 

But now that it’s been broken, and especially now that same sex marriage has been defended by such a significant majority in one American statehouse, I would expect to see other statehouses follow.  Perhaps not this year or the next.  But soon.  We are finally on the threshold of our dream of equality.  In one birthplace of the American revolution, the revolution still lives after all. 

I feel so good right now.  Better then I thought I’d ever feel about my country again after six years of George Bush.  Man…I am gonna have me some fireworks for This 4th…