How steep is that slippery slope?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jun 14, 2007

We already know that things are going to hell in a handbasket in Massachusetts.

How fast is that handbasket moving?

In January of this year, there were 62 votes in the state legislature in favor of the Marriage Amendment.* If we could have held those 62 votes-- or even held the attrition to under 20%-- the question would have been placed on the ballot.

We needed 50 votes, and got 45. Thus pro-family forces in Massachusetts lost 27% of our legislative support in the space of five months.

Math is not my strong suit. I'll let someone else plot the graph. But I know this much: it's a steep decline.

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(*In case you're curious: The January vote was taken by the members of the last legislative assembly, just before they left office in January of this year. The legislative leaders had postponed the vote until the end of the session, hoping to find a way to kill the amendment. Under the Massachusetts constitution, an amendment initiated by a citizens' petition must be endorsed by 25% of the legislators in two consecutive sessions in order to qualify for the ballot. The Marriage Amendment won approval in the last session; this session killed it.)