MassEquality holds Boston community meeting

[Ian David]

Issue Date: 1/25/2007, Posted On: 1/25/2007

Ethan Jacobs
[e-mail]

About 80 people turned out at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul Jan. 17 for a MassEquality community meeting, part of a series of meetings the organization is holding across the state to explain to its supporters its plan to defeat the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the current legislative session. Marc Solomon, campaign director for MassEquality, explained to the audience how the marriage amendment was able to win initial approval by lawmakers at the Jan. 2 constitutional convention (ConCon) and talked about plans going forward to try to defeat it. Following his remarks he and three pro-equality lawmakers, Reps. Alice Wolf (D-Cambridge), Mike Moran (D-Boston) and Carl Sciortino (D-Somerville) took questions from the audience in an extended Q&A session, and those questions showed both that attendees were committed to working to defeat the amendment and that some were concerned about whether MassEquality’s strategy for doing so would prove effective.

Solomon told audience members that after the Nov. 9 ConCon, when lawmakers voted to recess until Jan. 2, the last day of the session, MassEquality was convinced it had won, expecting the session to end without a vote on the amendment. He said a Dec. 27 ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) saying that amendment proponents had no legal recourse to force a vote on the amendment but arguing that lawmakers had an obligation to take an up-or-down vote on the merits of the amendment, effectively brought the marriage amendment back to life. Following that ruling Solomon said many of the lawmakers who had committed to take a procedural vote to kill the amendment Jan. 2 pulled their support, and Sen. President Robert Travaglini forced through a vote on the merits before MassEquality and its allies had time to regroup.

Going into the next ConCon, which could take place anytime between now and the beginning of 2009, proponents of the amendment already have at least 58 votes in favor of their amendment, eight more than they need to pass it on an up-or-down vote and send it to the voters as a referendum. Solomon said MassEquality will be working to pick up at least nine votes, and possibly as many as 15, to try to defeat the amendment on an up-or-down vote this session. He said MassEquality will target their outreach to each individual legislator they are working to reach, trying to identify people in their districts, whether members of their social circle or important business and community leaders, who could persuade them to change their vote.

<snip>

One audience member asked why lawmakers unwilling to kill the marriage amendment through a procedural vote Jan. 2 were willing to take a procedural vote killing a universal healthcare amendment that same day. Solomon answered in one word: “Hypocrisy.”

Solomon added that lawmakers’ procedural vote to kill the healthcare amendment indicated that they may be willing to use the same tactic to kill the marriage amendment.

“I think that’s an issue we will point out over the course of time because there was an exception for us,” said Solomon.

More:
http://baywindows.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&AudID=0813BC739F2044E5A03DCF2DE3FDF7C9&tier=4&id=3207E204ECE24D24A5902FB1B5050F3C