Finneran seeks to delay start of gay marriages | Boston Globe

[Ediacara]

Finneran seeks to delay start of gay marriages
Constitutional convention becomes focus of lobbying

By Frank Phillips and Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 2/6/2004

House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran vowed yesterday to explore all options for the Legislature to delay implementation of the Supreme Judicial Court ruling legalizing gay marriage, although legal specialists and other legislative leaders said there is no wiggle room once the ruling takes effect in May.

Finneran, a Democrat who is a staunch opponent of gay marriages, said he feared legal chaos if gay couples are allowed to marry this year and then Massachusetts voters approve a constitutional amendment in 2006 that would define marriage solely as the union of a man and a woman.

One option under consideration by lawmakers yesterday was to ask the SJC for a delay of its May deadline. Another possibility would be to pass a law describing the rational basis for banning gay marriage, and then hope the law would be challenged and the court would determine that gay marriage is unconstitutional.

More at the Boston Globe

[BayCityProgressive]

1. oh shut up Finneran

[David__77]

2. Wow, they just don't get it or believe it, do they?

The court will order licenses to be issued once the dealine is up--period. I also don't understand why the Democrats won't or can't get rid of Finneran. Doubtless there's an electoral downside, but it's one thing to be against same-sex marriage, it's quite another to be a leader against it.

[hobbes159]

3. Finneran is the real power in MA

Not the gov, not the senate, nobody. He is extraordinarily powerful. There used to be a OverthrowFinneran website, but it seems to have disappeared.

[Nicholas_J]

4. Be diffiicult

The recent ruling by the courts would make an amendment to the constitution subject to immediately being overturned by the courts as an attempt to subvert the powers of the courts after the fact. It then becomes a constitutional issue based on the balance of power set up in the constitution. Can one branch of government use its power to set itself up as the sole body of govenrment to control all legislation . Such an amendment would immediately result in the courts responding to such and attept to eliminate its power by refering to the balance of case law regarding such an amendment, and the amendment itself overturned as unconstitutional on many grounds, the most imporatant being the "no taxation without representation" argument that has been the lynchpin of the Massachusetts argument. That is to say that gays have the same legal obligations as heterosexuals under the law. They must pay the same taxes, both state and federal, are obligates to provide government services like jury duty and can be called up under a draft, but must pay for government services they do not have the right under any circumstance to take part in. The idea that they must meet all of the obligations of citizensip without having access to all of the legal protections that citizenship confers based on sexual prefernce has now had the prime lgal precedent established by the courts. This was the failure of civil unions. They did not confer equality under the law, but created a separate and unequal set of rights for gays, that only gave them part of the benfits that are conferred to married heterosexuals, which in essensce still left gays cuts off from far many more benefits thatn civil unions gave to them, but still left gays with the full obligations of citizenship. Why should gays be required to even pay for the paper on which marriage licenses are printed if they do not have the right to obtain on themselves. This is the real argument that made the idea of civil unions a failed idea from the beginning and why most of the demcrats and p
THe problem is not in Massachusetts. Any attempt to undo this decision by amendment will simply end up with the amendment being declared uncontitutrional within days. But this legislation has created the ability to undo civil unions, and then block their replacement.

[markus]

5. Mass must have one weird state constitution

if the judiciary has the right to legislate, and the legislature has no power to currect the deficiencies of its legislation post-judicial decision.

Not arguging the contrary of the facts, which I support. But unless they have a very unusual constitution, the legislature is well within its powers to correct the deficiencies and/or amend the constitution.

It sounds like there is pretty much nothing that will pass muster with this court, however, except for an amendment.

[apsuman]

11. I agree with marckus

Can you explain to me exactly how the supreme court of Mass can declare an amendment to the Constitution to Mass unconstitutional?

Or did you mean that federal courts would declare such an amendment unconstitutional?

After an amedment is passed they can't say it doesn't exist. They can interpret the hell out of it but have to recognize that it is there.

[hobbes159]

6. Simple solution... let's ban marriage by the government altogether

After all, it's contributing to the high divorce rate and the number of divorced single moms on welfare.

</sarcasm>

Need to go pace around the house and yell for a while now....

[stepnw1f]

7. I'm from MA

What I know is that most people here in this state think gays should have legal rights to marry. I also can tell you that Finneran is a sack of shit. He calls himself a Democrat, but if you look at his records, you begin to realize how conservative he really is.

[formernaderite]

8. Really? I always got the feeling that beantown was more Catholic...

than truly progressive. Sure they voted for democrats...but that was part of being a traditional Catholic. On lot's of issues I found beantowners to be pretty closed minded. Then again, most of the people I knew were blue collar types.

[stepnw1f]

9. Yes...And I was raised in a Blue-collar

town and family. It's true that most have very conservative views on issues, while they are very open-minded on others. Also, I grew up hanging out on the corners of Jamaica Plain up until I went to college. I know there are allot of closed-minded people, but I also know that most people are still very tolerant to change and willing to accept change if you are willing to tell them to their faces how and why there should be change.

[stepnw1f]

10. By the way..

I'm not Catholic.