| OMG!!! But... but... what happened? Where is the fire and brimstone, the mass panic, and for the love of Gawd won't SOMEONE think of teh childrun???
Guess all the panic, squealing and hand-wringing was all for naught.
Massachusetts has yet to become, as former governor Mitt Romney predicted, the "Las Vegas of same-sex marriage." Gay marriage rates leveled off at about 1,500 a year - about 4 percent of all state marriages - in 2006 and 2007. The divorce rate in Massachusetts has remained the same - and the lowest in the country.
And only one other state now allows same-sex marriage; 30 states have a ban against it.
Wait a minute- the LOWEST divorce rate?? How can that be?? Weren't we all promised that heterosexual marriages would be toast if gay marriage was allowed? I'm so confused...
So what IS DIFFERENT, then?
What's really changed is more subtle than cosmic, more about the everyday lives of gay couples in Massachusetts than about a national transformation. Gay and lesbian couples here said they are attracting fewer startled looks when they rent cars, less consternation when they hold hands, fewer awkward questions when they visit spouses in hospital rooms.
"When we're out together as a couple, it really doesn't come up; we're never challenged anymore," said David Wilson, one of the plaintiffs in the 2003 SJC case and the current chairman of MassEquality, a gay-rights advocacy group. "It's now considered normal."
Maureen Brodoff and Ellen Wade, who were among the first gay and lesbian couples to wed here, have noticed the decrease in embarrassed double takes when they introduce themselves as wife and wife.
"The sky didn't fall," Brodoff said Wednesday, as she and Wade sat with their English setters Diana and Joey in the living room of their tidy Colonial in Newton Centre. "The newness of it has eased. It's just another marriage."
But...but...
Groups that oppose gay marriage say the state is trying to force people to accept behavior they believe is unnatural and unacceptable. But there are signs that the number of people opposed to same-sex marriage is waning in Massachusetts. In February 2004, a survey of 400 voters found that 42 percent were in favor of same-sex marriage and 44 percent opposed it. In a similar survey completed this August, approval sprang to 59 percent and opposition sank to 37 percent, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the polls.
Representative Paul J. Kujawski, a Democrat who represents a district in southern Worcester County, also changed his vote. "I looked at it from a standpoint of my personal life and my family and it didn't affect me at all," he said. "It really became an issue where we would be taking happiness away from people's lives."
"HAPPINESS?" Where is it written in our Constitution that Americans have a right to THAT?
Let's see if the MA legislature will "nip this in the bud"...
Gay marriage opponents had vowed to elect a Legislature that supported their agenda. On Election Day, the opposite took place. Out of its 200 members, the Legislature now has 158 lawmakers who Marc Solomon, executive director of MassEquality, believes support his cause, an increase of three legislators.
Where is the resistance? SHOW ME THE RESISTAAAAANCE!
Brian Camenker of the group MassResistance, which opposes gay marriage, said he believes that most people cannot accept the idea of gays and lesbians as a group whose rights need special protection.
"The concept is so ridiculous and absurd," he said.
Camenker contends that gay marriage will never take root in the United States, where, he said, "in most people's minds, the concept of gay marriage doesn't exist and never will exist."
Well, THERE.
Um... but where's the disaster, Brian? Not one example of how heterosexual lives have been sullied or ruined over the past 5 years? Makes me wonder- maybe you are WRONG about this?
Off to volunteer for EqualityMaine... have a great day, everyone!
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