Bitches? We Don't Need No Stinking Bitches.

The Massachusetts General Court ensured that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would remain the paragon of punchlines (supplanting even New Jersey), voting to ignore the will of at least 170,000 voters.

The Supreme Judicial Court created a right to homosexual marriage in February of 2004, by a 4-3 vote, and ever since then, opponents have sought the right to have a vote on the issue. Unfortunately, the proponents have cajoled, threatened, and outright bribed legislators to ensure that the will of the people would not be heard.

Last Thursday, legislators voted 151-to-45 to deep-six the efforts to place the issue on the 2008 ballot. At least nine members of the General Court, who were thought to support the right of the people to vote, changed their votes at the last minute. His Excellency, the Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, made some back-room deals to ensure that the Gang of Nine voted their consciences, and not their constituencies.

And, truth be told, the opponents of same-sex marriage got (their pole) smoked by the supporters, for failing to define their opposition, for failing to ensure that they didn't sound like a bunch of bigoted freaks.

Now, frankly, I would think that the supporters would want a vote, to show how many citizens support homosexual marriage. But, they are afraid--deathly afraid--that the citizenry will take away their illegitimate right. The one created out of the constitutional ether.

My opposition to same-sex marriage is this: Marriage is a union--traditionally, Biblically, empirically--between one man and one woman. Not a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a man and eight women (hence the fact that bigamy is a crime, and polygamy is outlawed). Marriage is also a word. One word that describes the aforementioned union.

If I can not use "gay" (to describe my feelings when I am happy) or "fag" (to talk about cigs, when I am in the UK) without going to a rehab, then the homosexual community can not have "marriage."

Civil unions, maybe. Marriage, no.

Not to mention the fact that, with some planning, a same-sex couple has all of the rights as a heterosexual couple (save for the Marriage Tax that the Democrat party wants to bring back). All they have to do is make their wishes known, through a lawyer, and they will be able to ensure financial stability for their mate, to ensure care, maintenance and support for their adopted children, and to pass wealth along to their partner. They don't need marriage. They don't even need civil unions, for that matter.

They do need to have a vote, and to let the chips fall where they may.

And, for those of you idiots who think that this is like holding a referendum on slavery, it is not. 600,000 Americans are not dying anytime soon to preserve (or eliminate) this so-called right. Same sex marriage is not a civil rights issue, it is a lifestyle issue, and to try to make it a civil rights matter is to denigrate those that fought to eliminate discrimination based upon race and colour.

The bottom line is that there is only one way that this should have gone down (sorry--poor choice of phrases): The General Court should have allowed the matter to go to the ballot in November of 2008. They should have voted unanimously to let it go to the ballot, because they ultimately represent everyone in their district, not just four or five percent of the populous. Instead, they showed their hubris, their absolute disregard for the legislative process. They have taken a massive dump on the Constitution of the Commonwealth, and of the American way. In so doing, they have shown their contempt for the proponents and opponents alike.

Same-sex marriage remains legal, but tainted. A right crafted by four appointed justices, immune from any vote on their fitness for their office, supported by a legislature secure in the knowledge that the idiots in Massachusetts will continue to send them back to Beacon Hill and, a governor who has two hands and can not find his ass.

Had the matter gone to the ballot, and same-sex marriage been affirmed, I would have accepted it as the will of the people. I would have at least had a vote, a chance to be heard. (Unfortunately, the other side would not have expressed the same grace had they lost.)

In the meantime, I am going out to smoke a fag, and have a gay old time this glorious day. Hell, if they can have "marriage", I want all of my words back.