dynamic elf

I'm drafting a letter to the mayors of towns around Boston to the effect of: SF did it when it was illegal in CA. Our courts have specifically said that MA has to do it. Why wait around for the legislature? Take a bold step and start issuing marriage licenses today!

I found this post (http://volokh.com/2004_02_15_volokh_archive.html#107705524603138461) by Eugene Volokh on the topic interesting, for a perspective on the legality of the whole thing. Also the one immediately beneath it by his co-blogger Jacob Levy. (The Volokh Conspiracy is a lawblog.)

It hurts, a lot.

Civil Unions were something that a majority of Americans were willing to see happen, and I suspect they would have turned into marriages in a few years.

Events in MA galvanized anti-gay forces, and they're pushing a Constitutional Amendment that would elminate the possibility of civil unions as well as marriages. From the poll data I've seen, it's favored by close to 2/3rds of voters. Given the way DOMA went (where you had Bill Clinton sermonizing about the sanctity of family values), and those numbers, I could see that amendment going through. (It'd be the dumbest amendment since the Volstead Act, but that's beside the point.)

I think this was a well-intentioned idea that will backfire, especially since it's happening in an election year, and it gives the Republicans something that they can rally their base on without too much poltical pain.

I wish it wasn't that way, but wishing don't make it so.