just another issue

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 14, 2007

Today the Massachusetts legislature will vote on a constitutional amendment define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In a legislature dominated by self-identified Catholics, it's nip-and-tuck whether the proposal will win approval from just one-fourth of the legislators: the minimum necessary to put the marriage amendment on the statewide ballot.

The Boston Herald, supposedly the conservative newspaper in town, wants the issue to go away. This morning's Herald editorial argues that the legislators shouldn't be shy about killing the amendment by themselves, without allowing the citizens to vote. After all, the Herald reasons,

Each year they vote on how to spend tens of billions of our tax dollars; they even vote on how each of us should be taxed. And they are called upon countless times to vote on just the kind of social policy the dissenters in Goodridge referenced.

In the Goodridge case, the top court in Massachusetts changed the definition of marriage marriage. No big deal, the Herald says; legislators make decisions like that "countless times."

Name one.