Today on New Years Day the Boston Globe editorializes against an autocratic and undemocratic government that cares little for the rule of law.
Yet the Globe editorial concerns the destruction of democracy and law halfway across the world in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, not one on Boston’s Beacon Hill, just 3 miles north of the Globe’s offices.
Tomorrow the Massachusetts legislature will consider in joint session citizen petitions to amend the state constitution. The petition process is part of the constitution itself. The petitioners have fulfilled all the constitutional requirements to bring their proposed amendment to a vote in the legislature. In July the Globe editorialized that:
…the tension that now exists will not be relieved if opponents of gay marriage, who chafe at the narrow SJC ruling, are denied a legitimate vote in the Legislature because of political trickery.
And later in July when the legislature had postponed its vote until after the November election:
…delay is far better than killing the proposal by refusing to take it up, or by other legislative trickery.
But 2 days after the November general election when the day actually came for the Legislature to vote, the Globe editorialists smudged their former explicit endorsement of a vote in words as carefully chosen as any of Bill Clinton:
Legislators need not fear the wrath of their constituents if they move against advancing the gay marriage ban to the ballot.
On that day the legislature indeed “moved against advancing” the ban by adjourning their session rather than taking a vote on the initiative.
The Globe editors said in response...absolutely nothing.
On December 27 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court clarified the requirements of the Massachusetts constitution in a ruling by writing:
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