July 4th and 12th

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 30, 2006

On Tuesday, the citizens of our nation will focus yet again on the bravery and principles that led to the Declaration of Independence and the birth of our nation. Fifty-six men ages 26 to 70, from John Hancock to John Adams, from Ben Franklin to Thomas Jefferson, put their signatures and lives on the line in defense of freedom from tyranny. With valor and virtue, they risked death on a gallows for treason rather than live any longer under a system of government that they considered unrepresentative and unjust. Their convictions and courage remain the measure for American citizens and statesmen 230 years later.

They also provide the context and inspiration for the efforts of so many citizens, and the standard of judgment for state legislators, as we approach the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention on July 12th. On this day, the Protection of Marriage Amendment, a citizen initiative petition signed by a state record 170,000 residents, will come up before a joint session of the legislature. Fifty of two hundred legislators must vote to allow the Amendment petition defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to move forward toward the November 2008 ballot.

That vote is not so much a legislative referendum on same-sex marriage as it is an indication of how much our elected officials believe in democracy. A vote in favor of the petition on July 12th is not necessarily a vote in support of traditional marriage; it would merely give the citizens of the Commonwealth the opportunity to decide on something as foundational for our society as marriage. A vote against it would not just be a vote against the traditional understanding of marriage, but against giving ordinary citizens any say at all about it.

What hangs in the balance, in other words, is not just marriage, but whether our system of government will remain "of the people, by the people, for the people."

The whole marriage crisis in our commonwealth began when those in favor of same-sex marriage, knowing that they would not be able to win their case by a popular vote, decided to take their case to an unelected and increasingly unrepresentative judiciary. Their strategy succeeded when, in 2003, by a one-vote majority, the state Supreme Judicial Court overturned centuries of jurisprudence and redefined marriage as a husband-less or wife-less institution. Many citizens began to wonder whether they were living under a system of self-government or a judicial oligarchy.

Defenders of marriage as a heterosexual institution saw the strategy coming and tried, under traditional democratic means and with faith in our system of government, to defeat it by a citizen initiative petition in 2001. A then record 130,000 signatures were collected in the fall of 2001 in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman. It came before the Constitutional Convention in 2002. It was easily going to receive the necessary twenty-five percent legislators to pass it to a second hearing in 2003. If passed a second time, as predicted, it would have gone before the voters in November of 2004 and likely stalled any effort of the SJC to render a decision on marriage in the interim. Every poll indicated that it likely would have won a solid victory before the people. However, then Senate President Thomas Birmingham, by a back-handed procedural maneuver supported by gay lobbyists, killed it before it was able to come up for a vote in the convention. This was the first time the will of the people with regard to marriage was thwarted by those elected to represent them.

In 2005 a new citizen initiative petition in favor of the Protection of Marriage Amendment was begun and received an even greater number of signatures from citizens. Massachusetts citizens are aware that, since the 2003 SJC decision, nineteen of nineteen other states that have taken up the question of the definition of marriage. In all of them, by huge margins, the citizenry has voted to reaffirm marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Massachusetts residents deserve the same chance.

There is presently talk in Beacon Hill corridors that, should it become clear that more than fifty votes in favor of advancing the Amendment exist, legislators opposed to it will stage a walk-out. If more than one-hundred do so, then there would be no quorum, and no vote would be able to take place. This would be attempted despite a 1935 Supreme Judicial Court decision that mandates that legislators in a constitutional convention are required to take "final action" on citizen initiative petitions.

While many legislators are contemplating a dereliction of duty, citizens of the commonwealth should not. It is their responsibility to hold legislators accountable to the oath they took to uphold the constitution of the commonwealth, which requires final action on citizen initiative petitions.

Now is the time for citizens to remind their legislators that on July 12th, they expect them to behave more like Thomas Jefferson and the courageous founding fathers than Thomas Birmingham and his cunning and cowardly collaborators.

Now is the time for citizens to contact their state representatives and senators and tell them they expect them not only to be present for the vote on July 12th, but, regardless of their personal beliefs on the issue of marriage, to support the right of citizens to have their say.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.