Anti-Equality Demons on the Prowl

Put your lefty butt in the chair and grab a pen! The anti-gay/anti-same-sex-marriage folk are already campaigning for May to rush a vote on the amendment to stop SSM here.

VoteOnMarriage knows how tenuous a thread holds its 25% of the combined legislature needed to advance this odious effort. There is a new automated email-your-hate-into-your-lawmaker page announced today. So if you were thinking, damn it's cold, I'm hiding, and I have months to act before the next possible ConCon, forget it. This is the time and your chair is the locale.

A tip of the toque to Ian for the alert.

The short of it is that even with the incredibly low bar of a quarter of the legislature to advance a ballot initiative, the forces of theocracy could lose this one this spring or summer. A half dozen waffling legislators voting for civil rights and marriage equality -- or just to keep from putting discrimination into our state constitution -- and the last couple of year of division, scare tactics, lies and cheating are gone.

For three big reasons, the VOM folk have to be pretty sure that this is their last chance. To wit:

1. About 9,000 SS couples have wed here and no straight marriages are in trouble because of it, there has been no negative financial impact, our divorce rate is the nation's lowest, and all the other havoc VOM and its buddies promised were proven to be lies.
2. The polled voting public has gone from well under half support SSM at the time of the Goodridge decision to well over 60% supporting SSM now. The big stick of legislators fearing loss of their seats is gone.
3. The state has a new governor and much to be done to return us to financial and physical security. People are sick of the distractions.

Amusingly enough, the VOM folk want their drooling minions to send this electronic form email. These don't count for much. We can do better.

It is very important that both Senators and Reps hear from their own constituents. Others are just so many donkeys braying in the field.

You can go to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's elections information section here to find out someone's legislators. Plug in your and your Aunt Nancy's street and town to see if she is in the district of a fence sitter or a legislator who voted to advance the amendment.

If one of these is your legislator, try to visit and urge defeat of the amendment initiative. If you can't, call and write. Do both. When you write, do it in longhand for the greatest effect.

Note that a few newly elected legislators need education. These are:

• Sen. Gail Candaras (D-East Longmeadow)
• Rep. Graldo Alicea (D-Southbridge)
• Rep. Linda Dean Campbell (D-Methuen)
• Rep. Jay Barrows (R-Foxborough)
• Rep. Angelo Puppulo (D-Wilberham)

The VOM folk are running scared. We'd love to turn 15 who voted for the amendment. If Senate President and ConCon boss Bobby Travaglini knows the counts are for marriage equality, he won't do the same trick this time around and rush it through. If we turn six or seven, we may have enough. Let's go for 15 or even 20.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, amendment, same sex marriage, ConCon