The Legislature, in a vote as swift as it was historic, reaffirmed the state's first-in-the-nation same-sex marriage ruling yesterday, unequivocally protecting the rights of gays and lesbians to wed in Massachusetts until at least 2012.
The vote followed 3 1/2 years of fierce arguments, emotional testimonies, and controversial legal decisions. It came on a day filled with cheering and jeering in the streets of Beacon Hill.
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"In Massachusetts today, the freedom to marry is secure," Governor Deval Patrick told a cheering crowd of gay-marriage advocates after the results of the Constitutional Convention were announced. "Today's vote is not just a vote for marriage equality. It was a vote for equality itself."
The initial vote (it apparently needed two votes to go through) had stronger support; apparently a number of legislators changed their minds (plus several lost their jobs).
Less than six months ago, the amendment's chances appeared strong, after it won the support of 62 lawmakers at a Constitutional Convention in January.
Since that initial vote, several opponents of gay marriage have left the Legislature, and there has been a dramatic shift in leadership. Governor Mitt Romney and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who both supported the amendment, were replaced by Patrick and Murray, both strong supporters of same-sex marriage, who joined House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi in trying to pry away votes from the ban.
DiMasi, facing a major test of his leadership skills, was given particular credit by gay-rights leaders yesterday for his work in turning around votes in the House.
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Patrick Guerriero, a former Republican legislator from Melrose who is now executive director of Gill Action, a national political organization that promotes gay rights, said the Legislature's vote has broad national implications.
"Every single state in America was looking at Massachusetts today for a message, and the message is clear, that this state's experience in marriage equality has endured and thrived," Guerriero said.
Resignations and turnover from last year's elections drained at least five votes from the pro-amendment side, while lobbying by leaders and gay rights activists further eroded support for the gay marriage ban.
In the end, nine lawmakers, seven Democrats and two Republicans, changed their votes yesterday, while at least two legislative newcomers who had been considered supporters of the amendment decided to vote the other way.
Senator Michael Morrissey, a Democrat from Quincy, said he did not respond to any pressure in coming to his decision.
"There isn't one person in the entire room who knew how I was going to vote," he said. "I didn't talk to the governor. I didn't talk to the Senate president. I wasn't succumbing to political pressure.
"In the end it came down to the fact that we have to do what we think is the right thing and what we feel comfortable with. Protecting the rights of the minority is one of the things we have to do."
Another article mentions one person who changed their vote:
The signal fact of the matter is that over the course of this state's long debate about gay marriage, an awful lot of legislators looked inside themselves, examined their consciences, talked with constituents, and changed their minds.
One was Representative Paul Kujawski, Democrat of Webster, who had voted against gay marriage until yesterday.
As he talked to gays and lesbians, Kujawski told me, he heard over and over again that people shouldn't face discrimination because of the way they were born.
"When you hear that, it really has a great impact," he said. "You try as a representative to put your own family into that same situation, saying, what if it was me, what if it was my sons, what if it was my brother or my sister, or somebody very close to me?"
I kinda wonder where the hell Mr. Kujawski has been -- we've been telling you this for years. You only figured it out now?
Well, at least you figured it out.
And this short editorial ends on a promising note:
Time is on the side of equality. The state's first same-sex married couples have already celebrated their third wedding anniversaries. With each year that passes, it becomes ever clearer that the sky will not fall; that the institution of marriage has been strengthened, not weakened; and that giving everyone the right to marriage makes Massachusetts a happier place overall.
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