Throw Dirt on the Anti-Marriage Equality Crowd

Schadenfreude is surely right behind self-righteousness in unattractive human behavior. Yet, the anti-marriage equality and anti-gay forces have so richly earned disdain in their failed battles to hamper, hinder and harm others.

Today, we should have a brief celebration, but a sincere one, at their expense. I monitored the Massachusetts House's debate online this afternoon. I prepared a tiny report with the basics and with 15 seconds of the vote to repeal the set of 1913 laws preventing out-of-state homosexual couples from marrying here, I posted the results.

Now is the time for quick reflection and commentary. Over at Bay Windows, there's a pretense of detached analysis. Yet, I'm sure they were as elated as I.

What we need to keep before us and tuck in our scrapbooks is that all the nasty forces of the Mass Family Institute and Mass Resistance were unable to stop or even slow the millstone of equality from grinding. More important, with each such battle, we see:

• Increasingly wilder, unsupported and unsupportable claims of chaos and duplicity.
• Delusional promises of influence from these pathetic dwindling parties of fools and babblers.

I confess that my pleasure in their pain and failures comes from the certainty that their atrophy is severe. Only the smallest pouch of nasties remains to fund and encourage them.

I'm sure Bud over at MassResistance Watch will have his usual insightful analysis soon. Meanwhile, we can consider them.

MR has been mired in a muddy trough. After the Senate passage without dissent, they pretended, "Mass. House balking on "1913" Law" vote! Outrage from citizens scaring politicians!," as though their dreary and tired cries influenced anyone at all on Beacon Street. Their feature on the pending House follow-up was not to set their handful of hatefuls up for the inevitable defeat. Rather, MR wrote that contacts with lawmakers were running six-to-one in their favor, with the clear implication that they would prevail in a triumph of bigotry over equality in its own time.

Likewise, they haven't had the chance to spin this one. Instead, they stuck to their failed position with the coverage head, "Mass. House passes repeal of '1913 Law' to export same-sex 'marriage' across America," as though a law in one state overrode statues in all others. I try to imagine how dull-witted or delusional you would have to be to believe that one. However, they've hauled out and displayed that little stuffed monkey for several years.

Likewise, over at the more professional and sophisticated hate-mongers at MFI, the tack is that somehow the House and Senate together have spit on the Supreme Judicial Court. The idea is more complex than the arguments of the simple-minded folk at MR. Instead, they pretend that when the SJC did not rule in April 2007 that these laws were unconstitutional, all was settled. Of course, what the ruling really reads is that these laws were crafted well, so they couldn't dismiss these out of hand, even though the legislature should revisit them.

MFI's position, and they're sticking to it, is that even though the SJC is generally odious to them, having ruled for SSM in Goodridge, sometimes they have PR utility. In this case, a fleeting mention in the Goodridge decision that these laws were yet another safety valve is somehow key to all future considerations. In fact, we have been alone among states in unilateral anti-comity laws that protected bigotry elsewhere.

When Gov. Deval Patrick signs this long overdue bill of repeal, we won't carry this particular shame, except historically.

For this blog, I wonder when my work is done. This is a tempting terminus and I'll consider it. Surely for MR and MFI, they must have dreadful fund-raising figures. They've lost every contest and quite literally every prediction of chaos from equality and effectiveness of their efforts has proven 100% wrong. Only the saddest, strangest of followers must be left.

Perhaps they can find honest work that builds on something positive and not on harming others.

Today, dance a short but joyous dance of celebration.

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Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, MassResistance, same sex marriage, comity, MFI, 1913, Bay Windows