{"id":2890,"date":"2006-11-09T00:13:29","date_gmt":"2006-11-09T07:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/11\/09\/survey-most-massachusetts-voters-would-vote-against-gay-marriage-ban\/"},"modified":"2006-11-09T00:13:29","modified_gmt":"2006-11-09T07:13:29","slug":"survey-most-massachusetts-voters-would-vote-against-gay-marriage-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2890","title":{"rendered":"Survey: Most Massachusetts Voters Would Vote Against Gay Marriage Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s good that same-sex marriage happened in Massachusetts first, because the Massachusetts constitutional amendment process is designed to move slowly, encouraging deliberation and second thoughts. In Massachusetts, ballot measures amending the state constitution can’t be sent to the voters until after <\/em>a quarter of the legislature votes in favor of the amendment, in two sessions in a row. So if the SSM ((SSM = “same sex marriage.”)) ban passes the Massachusetts legislature tomorrow, then it has to pass it again in 2007, and only if it does that do the voters get a crack at it – in 2008.<\/p>\n

This has put anti-equality activists, who have no rational arguments on their side but who excel at harnessing bigotry and fearmongering, at a disadvantage in Massachusetts. It wasn’t possible for them to pass a SSM ban were unable to take advantage of the initial shock following the Massachusett Supreme Court’s Goodridge <\/em>decision. ((Unable to take advantage of it in Massachusetts<\/em>, I mean. They certainly took advantage of it in the rest of the country!)) And now that Massachusetts voters have seen firsthand that the sky doesn’t fall when lesbian and gays legally marry, it seems unlikely that an SSM ban could pass there. From the Boston Herald<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

State House News Poll results released Sunday show 56 percent of respondents say that when the Massachusetts Legislature meets in Thursday\u2019s Constitutional Convention, members should advance a ban on gay marriage. However, if the ban reaches the ballot, 63 percent of poll respondents would vote against it<\/strong> and 31 percent would vote for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s sad that SSM bans are passing <\/a>in so much of the country – but in the long run, these bans won’t stop equal marriage rights. Marriage equality wasn’t really on the table in Tennessee or Georgia or even Oregon anyway (although I expect we’ll have civil unions in Oregon soon). I don’t ignore the real harm those bans do, but I don’t think they’re the whole story, either. Massachusetts is the front line, and it’s where marriage equality will be won. Massachusetts is where reality defeats fearmongering.<\/p>\n

Every night, anti-equality activists go to their beds praying <\/em>for catastrophe in Massachusetts; praying for divorce rates to skyrocket, for children to be in pain, for families to collapse, for disaster and horror to swoop down on every family in Massachusetts. They clutch their little hands and screw shut their eyes and fervently beg God to make Massachusetts families suffer, suffer, suffer. Because they know that if this doesn’t happen, they’ve lost. Married queers in Massachusetts are winning the fight for marriage equality, just by leading ordinary lives, rather than being harbingers of the Apocalypse.<\/p>\n

Over the coming decades, as each new generation is less homophobic than the last, and as the Massachusetts sky stubbornly continues to unfall, the fearmongering arguments against marriage equality will become more and more embarrassing. The anti-SSM votes we’ve seen – all of them<\/em> – will be undone. The 63% who oppose banning SSM in Massachusetts today are the mainstream of America by 2050.<\/p>\n

(Curtsy: Marriage Debate<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction<\/a>. If your comments aren\u2019t being approved here, try there.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s good that same-sex marriage happened in Massachusetts first, because the Massachusetts constitutional amendment process is designed to move slowly, encouraging deliberation and second thoughts. In Massachusetts, ballot measures amending the state constitution can’t be sent to the voters until … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}