Focus on the Family reports on the constitutional crisis brewing in the Bay State:
Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled 4-3 Tuesday that it will accept nothing less than marriage -- name and all -- to satisfy its November demands that the state Legislature legalize homosexual marriage.
Senate President Robert Travaglini, D-Boston, had asked the court whether S.B. 2175 -- a bill he wrote that would introduce Vermont-style civil unions to the Bay State -- would satisfy justices' demand for same-sex marriage.
The answer was no.
. . . The court's decision would seem to ensure that Feb. 11's constitutional convention will go on as scheduled. Travaglini had been considering postponing a vote on the Marriage Affirmation and Protection Amendment (the MA and PA), which would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the state constitution, pending the court's decision on civil unions. But the fact that justices won't accept the compromise means no middle ground is left, said Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth.
. . . But if 101 of the state's 200 legislators vote to pass the MA and PA -- the minimum number required -- licenses still may not [sic] be issued, because the state will be in the throes of a constitutional crisis, said Evelyn Reilly, director of public policy for the Massachusetts Family Institute. The Bay State's constitutional amendment process takes two years; a proposed amendment must pass two consecutive legislative sessions, then be approved twice by a majority of the state's voters. The earliest the MA and PA could take effect is November 2006.
"If there's a vote on the amendment, that should send the signal to the SJC that they should hold off on implementing anything, because the constitution could well be amended," Reilly told CitizenLink. "For them to allow same-sex couples to have marriage licenses in May would create social chaos. Those people would be doing so at their own risk, because those licenses could be invalidated in 2006. That would certainly be the right thing to do - but this court is not known for doing the right thing."
The story includes links for e-mailing the relevant legislators, including a page with all 200 e-mail addresses for the Massachusetts legislators, some of whom get rather snippy about receiving input from out-of-state troublemakers. Don't be surprised if you receive a reply equating you with racists; I did.
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wrote a fine op-ed on this issue in the Wall Street Journal.
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