Places I Never Meant to Be: Marriage should not be politicized

While most Boston University students were away for Thanksgiving break, acting Governor Jane Swift was pretty busy. During her final month in office, she is ready to make budget cuts and is trying to push certain issues ahead in the legislature.

In the past week, just before the Statehouse went on vacation, she made a few important announcements.

She’s announced she will be handing a balanced budget to Governor-elect Mitt Romney, even if this achieved budget will mean cuts in state programs.

She also announced she will be seeking advice from the state’s highest court about whether she can recall the legislature to vote on a question about a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.

For there to be a question on the ballot in 2004 about amending the constitution, it needs to be approved before the end of the 2002-2003 session and again by the 2003-2004 session.

The legislature and the governor both seem to agree this is a complicated issue. In July, the legislature voted to adjourn without giving an answer to either side. The amendment, initiated by 130,000 Massachusetts citizens, would make same-sex marriages unconstitutional and give marriage benefits only to unions of one man and one woman.

But banning gay marriages is not a complicated issue. Marriage benefits should be given to any two people who love each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. The sex of the people involved is not as important as the bond the union makes. Marriage is a personal choice between two people and nobody else.

This is an issue that is very important to some people, who insist marriage should only be between a man and a woman. These people do not seem to understand that marriage is a personal choice between two people to spend the rest of their lives together. Nobody has the right to tell other people how to live their lives or to impose his or her own view of marriage upon them.

Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage is intent on keeping certain people from marrying each other. They have also filed a suit to force the legislature to hear this issue, which they say the people support.

When did marriage become a political issue? When did one of the most personal choices two people have to make in their lives become a constitutional issue?

People have the right to marry whomever they want, and the Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage does not have the right to say who can marry whom.

But that is exactly what Swift is trying to do, and at the same time, she is hiding behind calling the legislature back for the issue. In the past, Swift has said she is against gay marriages, but this time she is masking her disapproval behind calling the legislature back in session.

Swift is using the last couple weeks of her two-year reign in Massachusetts to slowly work toward changing the state constitution. In a last ditch effort to actually attempt some of her goals, she is trying to take a stand on an issue supported by 130,000 citizens of Massachusetts.

The state constitution states the governor has the right to call the legislature back in session if both Houses adjourn without taking action on an amendment. Members of the legislature say that by voting to adjourn, they have taken action.

Maybe they are right and maybe they aren’t, but this issue was adjourned in July. The acting governor decided not to even so much as mention it until now, when the legislature was out of session. Swift has been under pressure from lobbyists to step in, but she has waited until the last possible moment to conduct unpopular questioning.

Aside from the moral arguments for not banning gay marriages, Swift needs to take a strong action on something and point fingers at the legislature to get noticed. She did the same thing last year: when the legislature was late on passing the state budget, she announced she would personally write the budget. She doesn’t have the power to write the budget, and the legislature did not even take her requests seriously.

This year, she is trying to blame the legislature for not making a decision and she’s even gone one step further she’s trying to make the decision herself. At the same time as trying to make the decision, she is trying to make the legislature look responsible for what could be an unpopular choice.

And by making her actions public before the court has even heard the issue the schedule said they heard it yesterday she is trying to show some political clout.

This is the wrong issue for her to try and close with and she is going about it the wrong way. As a governor, Swift wanted to be taken seriously, but by using her power for actions such as this one, she’s never going to be.