Many Massachusetts traditional-values groups are hoping their governor and a highly respected jurist will get the chance to ask the state’s high court to stay its decision legalizing same-sex “marriage.”
This latest tactic was begun Thursday when Gov. Mitt Romney filed emergency legislation in the legislature to allow him and his counsel, retired Supreme Judicial Court Justice Joseph R. Nolan, to address the high court.
However, other groups, such as the Article 8 Alliance, are seeking a more dramatic remedy — a recall of the four justices who legalized same-sex “marriage.”
“We the people … hereby demand that our legislature and governor remove the four rogue judges through the bill of address process,” says a petition circulated by the Article 8 Alliance, which uses the famous “Don’t Tread On Me” coiled rattlesnake flag on its Web site, www.article8.org.
The alliance is planning a rally this week at the Massachusetts Statehouse, and organizer Brian Camenker says he expects legislation to recall the justices will be introduced soon.
Both strategies are widely viewed as political long shots — friends and foes alike have called them “exercises in futility” and “hail-Mary passes.” Logistically, there are only four weeks left before the May 17 date the high court set for the state to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Homosexual-rights groups, which are elated by winning the landmark Goodridge v. Department of Public Health case, are dismayed by the delaying tactics.
As Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly acknowledged when he recently refused to ask the high court to stay its Goodridge decision, the case is over, Mary Bonauto, a lawyer with Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said Thursday.
Mr. Romney’s bill, which is awaiting a hearing by the joint Judiciary Committee, must be approved in the legislature. Senate President Robert Travaglini has signaled his displeasure, saying the governor was “overstepping the boundaries of his office” to advance a political agenda.
If approved, however, the emergency legislation would allow Mr. Romney and Justice Nolan to ask the high court to stay its Goodridge decision until the people have had a chance to vote on the issue, which would be no earlier than November 2006.
“It’s an awesome task,” said Philip Moran, a lawyer and chairman of Your Catholic Voice in Salem, Mass.
“But if the Supreme Judicial Court will listen to anybody, it would be Judge Nolan,” he said, adding that with a 4-3 vote, “he has to only convince one justice to change his mind.”
The traditional-values Coalition for Marriage and national groups such as Concerned Women for America have also praised Mr. Romney’s strategy.
But Mr. Camenker still considers a recall the best option.
“There’s hundreds of ways for [Mr. Romney’s legislation] to be defused by the left,” he said Friday. The bill of address, written into the constitution by John Adams in 1780, “is the intended remedy” for public officials, including judges, “who get out of line,” he said.
“We’re not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” he said. “This ‘fundamental right of same-sex marriage’ is a complete invention of an activist court. Our legislature is supposed to protect us from this … and we demand that they do.”
Politicians are saying they’re weary of homosexual “marriage” and they just want to move on, he added quietly. “Well, guess what. They’re not going to move on. Until it’s resolved, this is going to be in their faces.”
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