After a flurry of activity over the past few months that ended with a vote supporting the appearance of an amendment on the 2008 ballot to end same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, the status of the proposed amendment is still in limbo.
When, if at all, a final hurdle to it being put up for a public referendum will be overcome is still unclear.
The proposed amendment, which still needs to be voted on by the current legislature to determine whether it will appear on the ballot, has been the source of a great deal of controversy about the role of the public in determining certain state policies.
"I don't believe in putting civil rights to a [popular] vote," Dona Yarbrough, director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center, said. "Many civil rights violations have been perpetrated by the majority and against a minority, and minority rights have traditionally been protected by the Constitution and the courts."
On the other side of the debate, President of the Tufts Republicans Jordan Greene feels that a popular vote is the most fair way to gauge public opinion.
"Because of rampant gerrymandering and the standard benefits of incumbency, the state legislature is less conservative, more statist and more committed to social engineering than the people they serve," he said in an e-mail to the Daily. "Given this, the correct course of action seems clear.
The debate over the role of the people and the state came to a head in December when the last session of the legislature refused to vote on whether the amendment should appear on the ballot.
Following a court decision compelling them to bring the issue to a vote, its members decided, in a constitutional convention of both the state House and Senate, to support a public referendum in 2008.
Under the law, however, two consecutive legislative sessions need to support the appearance of an amendment on the ballot in order for it to reach a popular vote.
As of yet, the current group of legislators, who took office in January, have not voted.
State Representative Carl Sciortino (LA '00), a Democrat, said that a date for a vote has not been set, but he does not expect that the legislature will delay for an overly long time.
If the vote took place today, he said legislators would likely support the measure's appearance on the ballot, something he hopes to change before the legislature votes on it again. "We're still roughly nine votes short of where we need to be to defeat this," he told the Daily.
Even if the amendment does come up for a popular vote, it appears that the public will overwhelmingly reject it.
A poll taken in November showed 62 percent of residents oppose an amendment to ban same-sex marriage, while only 30 percent support it, according to a January article in the Christian Science Monitor.
"What the polling and specific research have shown us is that since gay marriage came into effect, the public has overwhelmingly found that it has made no difference to their lives," Tufts Department of Political Science affiliate Michael Goldman said.
Yarbrough cautioned, however, that polling numbers should not be used as a crutch.
"Those in favor of same-sex marriage should not be lulled into a false sense of security by these polls because if the issue comes to a popular vote, the religious right will spend an enormous amount of money and time to get the vote out, and their resources are much greater than those of pro-marriage organizations," she said.
Currently, as the amendment sits in limbo, it is unclear what measures activist Jumbos will take either in favor of or against it.
"We don't have any definite plans now because it's not going to go before the public until 2008 at the earliest," Mickey Leibner, the vice president of the Tufts Democrats, said.
The Tufts Republicans feel similarly, Greene said. "The level of support the club offers this campaign will be determined by its 2008 Executive Board," he said.
The Tufts Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) plans to take action if the issue comes to a popular vote, although no definite plans have yet been determined.
"Freedom to Marry Day is February 12th, and QSA might be doing something for that," QSA Coordinator Kelly Carnahan said.
