Could Gay Marriage Withstand a Popular Vote in Mass.?

The Christian Science Monitor has an in-depth article about the current state of gay marriage in Massachusetts. The most recent polling indicates that 62 percent of Massachussans oppose amending the constitution. But there's an odd thing about polling related to discrimination: People lie. They are embarassed to tell a pollster that they will vote to quash the rights of minorities, but in the privacy of the polling booth the temptation to do so can be great. In the days just before the November election, an Arizona pollster told me that only 30 percent of those surveyed supported the Arizona anti-gay marriage amendment. The amendment did fail--becoming the first ever to do so--but only by a few percentage points. Popular support at 62 percent is not enough to be free of this phenomenon.

The sound byte for gay marriage supporters in Massachusetts has been that the civil rights of a minority should not be put to a popular vote. After all, as Equal Marriage puts it, "This is the basic guarantee of our constitutional democracy."

Battle to Write Discrimination into the Constitution Heats Up in Alaska

The governor of Alaska vetoed a bill that would block the state from giving partner benefits to its gay and lesbian employees. Good news, right? Not really. The legislature was reacting to a court decision [PDF] that denying same-sex partners benefits violates the constitution's basic premise that "all persons are equal and entitled to equal rights." Governor Palin went out of her way to say that she agreed with the blatantly unconstitutional legislation, but said she still couldn't sign it because it was blatantly unconstitutional. Instead, she would like to amend the constitution to state not only that marriage is the union between one man and one woman (as it has since 1998) but also that none of the legal benefits or protections offered to married couples can go to those who cannot legally marry. In other words, Palin would essentially like to put an asterisk after "persons" in the constitution, which would define them at the bottom of the page as heterosexual people. Is that the next wave in constitutional amendments, or will there be an end to this blatantly unconstitutional madness, which also wastes the time and money that, as I understand it, Republicans favor?

The bill's sponsor, by the way, was Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole. I hope he freezes to death. Or falls into the Artic as a result of global warming.

Homo News Review

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled that legislators are, in fact, obliged to vote on a proposed amendment banning gay marriage. Opponents of the practice have been in a snit since the same court ruled in late 2003 that excluding same-sex partners from the institution of marriage ran afoul of the constitution. They gathered 170,000 signatures in order to put an amendment to the vote. Now they need only the approval of 51 legislators in two consecutive sessions. The legislators dodged the issue with a procedural vote, prompting Gov. Mitt Romney and a specially formed group called VoteOnMarriage.org to sue. VoteOnMarriage went so far as to sue the legislators personally. Romney also sued as an individual, giving a real whiff of how absurd his claims were. But, for reasons I can't understand, the court has decided that the legislators are obliged to vote—even though killing legislation with a procedural vote is far more common that voting on it. That, and a majority of Massachusetts residents support gay marriage. The court added that there is no legal remedy if the legislators do not vote. The only day remaining in the session is January 2, so stay tuned.

The outgoing Wisconsin attorney general submitted an opinion today arguing that the state's recently adopted amendment banning gay marriage does not invalidate domestic partner benefits or protections. The opinion is only advisory, however, because the state's high court has final say in interpreting the amendment.

Because Pope Benedict is so easy to dislike, I'm linking to this little ditty, which passes on Italian rumors that the pontiff is a homo (on the basis of his rather swank shopping habits) and quotes some real gems of pontifical homophobia.