cognitive dissident

The editorial “A good day for marriage” in the Boston Globe (h/t: vastleft at CorrenteWire) has some great words about yesterday’s defeat of a proposed anti-marriage ballot measure:

After weeks of intense lobbying and endless speculation about who might vote how, a joint session of the Legislature made blessedly quick work yesterday of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In a State House mobbed with revved-up campaigners on both sides of the issue, lawmakers took a quarter hour to dispatch the proposal by a decisive margin. The vote was a victory for decency and civil equality, and underscored Massachusetts' long history of protecting individual rights.

[…]

Supporters of marriage equality should be proud of this Commonwealth, where a three-fourths majority of lawmakers recognizes that committed same-sex couples, like their opposite-sex counterparts, deserve the protection of the laws.

[…]

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. [emphases added]

Over at Talk 2 Action, Frederick Clarkson commented that “The religious right lost a big one today in Massachusetts:”

Today's vote on marriage equality in Massachusetts was a crushing defeat for the religious right and all who pander to them.

The dark cloud of bigotry that has long loomed on the political horizon has been dispersed; Beacon Hill has lived up to its name -- and now stands as a shining example to the nation and to the world.

[…]

Meanwhile, the fog generated by antigay activists notwithstanding, marriage is a civil matter, licensed by the state. There are both religious and non-religious ceremonies and officiators. No religious group is required to perform any marriage, gay or strait, so the question then becomes -- why should the state recognize the marriages of one religious group and not others? Religious freedom, freedom of conscience, and equality of all citizens stands clearly on the side of equality in marriage.

The defeat of the amendment is a tremendous victory for religious freedom and separation of church and state. [emphases added]

I would just like to say “Mazel tov!” to all the happy couples; may you be joined by many, many more.

update (12:34pm):
Andrew Sullivan has some wise words for the occasion:

Two decades ago, marriage for gays was a pipe-dream. Some of us were ridiculed for even thinking of the idea. And yet here we are. Past the vicious attack from the president, past the cynical manipulation by Rove, past the cowardice of so many Democrats, past the rank hypocrisy of the Clintons, past the inertia of the Human Rights Campaign, past the false dawn in San Francisco, and the countless, countless debates and speeches and books and articles and op-eds. Yes, we have much more to do. Yes, we still have to win over those who see our loves as somehow destructive of the families we seek merely to affirm. Yes, we don't have federal recognition of our basic civic equality. Yes, in many, many states, we have been locked out of equality for a generation, because of the politics of fear and backlash. But look how far we've come. From a viral holocaust to full equality - somewhere in America, in the commonwealth where American freedom was born. In two decades. This is history. What a privilege to have witnessed it.

update 2 (3:53pm):
Paul Waldman writes at American Prospect about how public opinion on gay rights is “Marching Left,” http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06&year=2007&base_name=post_3974 observing that “there is simply no doubt which direction opinions will continue to move:”

…issues like these show a strong "cohort effect," meaning a divide between generations that results in steady change over time. The most socially conservative Americans are the oldest, those who are now in retirement. Each successive generation is more progressive than the one before it, down to today's young people, for whom a racially and sexually diverse environment is a given. I graduated from a public high school in New Jersey in the mid-1980s, and there was not a single out gay person in my class of 500. Today, there are gay-straight alliances in schools all over the country. Those kids aren't going to become more conservative when they get older - this country is simply not going back. [emphasis added]

Hatred and fear are powerful motivators, but—eventually—an unclouded view of reality will win out. As more same-sex couples get married, more straights will see that the wingnut fear-mongering is untenable; they will see through the Right’s lies, and will support the marriages of their LGBT friends and family members.