Vote or Die

The Massachusetts legislature has voted to advance an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment forward. If it leaps another legislative hurdle, it would go to the voters. The vote was 62-134 (only 50 votes are needed for this particular action).

Pam Spaulding is, justifiably, furious. And she has every right to be.

She doesn't get it. She has no problem with the principle of voting on this. As I said in the comments at my pad, with the character of people like Tucker, would it have been fine with her to let "the people" vote on whether I must sit at the back of the bus or drink from a separate fountain?

Today's shenanigans are why the civil rights of a minority should never be up for a vote.

But that being the case, I have to wonder if this might be a colossal miscalculation on behalf of gay marriage opponents. They've staked a lot of their energy on the argument that democratic forces had never approved gay marriage. That got a bit of a black eye when Connecticut approved its civil unions law (not to mention the democratic mayor of San Francisco), but now they've retreated to saying that only a popular referendum is enough to prove democratic support for gay marriage. It's intellectually dishonest (and itself starting to look shaky, given Arizona's rejection of a gay marriage ban), but what of it? Any opportunity we get to cut the legs out from under these people, I have no quarrel with. And I would not be surprised if pro-equality forces could win an election fight in Massachusetts.

If they do, that would be a massive, watershed moment for the forces of equality in America. And it would be all on the heads of the radical Christian right.

I like that irony.