Gay Marriage Amendment Vote today in Boston

Gay marriage supporters flooded into the Statehouse on Wednesday morning, hours before the Constitution Convention where lawmakers are expected to vote down a constitutional ban on gay marriage. [...]

Wednesday is the second time the Legislature will vote on the amendment. Last year, they narrowly approved it on a 105-92 vote. The proposal, which would establish civil unions for gay couples, must pass on second vote by the new Legislature before it can reach voters on the 2006 statewide ballot, but that is unlikely. An Associated Press survey of lawmakers indicates the amendment doesn’t have enough support to pass this year.

Both sides are already looking ahead to a battle over a proposed 2008 amendment, which would ban both gay marriage and civil unions. (source)

This is a prime example why passing any amendment to a state or federal constitution should be a very difficult and arduous task. The amendment narrowly passed last year. Some of the legislators who voted for the amendment are no longer in office and some, after living with gay married couples for a year, have changed their votes, deciding that it’s just not that big a deal.

At a press conference in Springfield, Sen. Stephen J. Buoniconti said yesterday he has changed his mind and will vote against the proposed amendment. Buoniconti voted in support last year.

The West Springfield Democrat said passage of the amendment would be “an act of great cruelty” since it could dissolve the estimated 6,500 gay marriages that have taken place since the unions became legal in May 2004 following a decision of the Supreme Judicial Court. (source)

And this...

State Rep. Richard Ross, R-Wrentham, was not in the Legislature when the civil unions amendment was voted on last year and said he is torn about how he will vote.

While Ross campaigned against gay marriage last year, he said his views have evolved after meeting with married gay constituents and having the “fear of the unknown” behind him.

“It gets complicated with the human factor that one is able to remove oneself from when it isn’t already a law,” Ross said. “When you start to understand the legal challenge that gay couples face, and now that they’ve been allowed to marry, it throws a whole lot into the mix that allows you to take away the prejudice, if you will.” (source)

Complicated indeed. When you know people who you are voting against, it’s a bit more difficult to actively do harm to their lives. To the gay couples who have access to marriage, for state issues, it’s a very big deal. If it holds up, I’m sure that in time, a lawsuit will be filed to force the federal government to uphold the Full Faith and Credit clause of the U.S. Constitution. We are talking, after all, about a real marriage issued by a state in the Union. How can the government take some of those marriages and not others? Even if the federal government passed a constitutional amendment against “gay marriage”, the state of Massachusetts makes no distinction to same-sex marriage vs. straight marriage.

Of course, the Supreme Court is being re-formed as we speak. I always thought that we had a right to privacy, but in 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that where the privacy of homosexuals is concerned, we had no such right (Bowers vs. Hardwick). The Court later overturned that ruling. They could do the same thing with marriage.

Update - 6:36pm
BOSTON (AP) — A year after the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, the Massachusetts Legislature on Wednesday rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage but legalize civil unions.

It was the second time the Legislature had confronted the measure, which was designed to be put before voters on a statewide ballot in 2006. Under state law, lawmakers were required to approve the measure in two consecutive sessions before it could move forward.

After less than two hours of debate, a joint session of the House and Senate voted 157-39 against the measure. (source)