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Enemies of justice
The distorted reality of gay-marriage opponents
BY STEPHEN M. MINDICH


SEVERAL DAYS AGO, the Boston Globe published an op-ed essay by William Hobbib, identified as a "software industry executive" and "a speaker at the Archdiocese of Boston’s Defense of Marriage information meetings." It was a nasty piece of work, a hateful screed in drag. Headlined GAY MARRIAGE AND THE RIGHT TO VOTE, it masqueraded as reasoned argument; in reality it is perversely disingenuous. I suppose the liberal editors of the Globe, which supports gay-marriage rights, thought they were being fair and balanced when they printed the piece, which — in essence — says that gays and lesbians have no more right to wed than black American slaves once did. (Not a very Christian concept, Hobbib.) I would have more respect for the paper if it had commissioned a piece by a brimstone-snorting fundamentalist explaining that same-sex intimate relations condemn participants to an eternity in hell. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My beef is with Hobbib and those he fronts for.

Hobbib wrote: More than 150 years ago, the French social commentator Alexis de Tocqueville visited America and observed, "There is no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America.... The American derives from his own home the love of order which he afterwards carries with him into public affairs."

Right-wing Christian radicals — Catholic and Protestant alike — are fond of quoting the French aristocrat, not fully realizing that his seemingly conservative observations are often mere steps in arriving at what in the 1830s were radical conclusions. De Tocqueville’s argument presupposes that marriage leads to an interest in property, which in turn leads to an even greater interest and stake in politics. In an age when voting was severely restricted in this nation and unheard-of in most of the world, this was earth-shattering. But Hobbib and his masters seem still to be getting used to the idea that our planet is round.

A man of Hobbib’s learning surely knows that it was the tyranny of the Church of England that caused our founders to settle here in New England. It was a son of those founders, John Adams, who wrote the Massachusetts Constitution. Adams then went on with Thomas Jefferson and others to craft our national Constitution. Central to both documents are safeguards against religious tyranny of any stripe. One may worship or not, but government must stay out of the way. Too inconvenient, Hobbib?

Hobbib continues: Herein lies our current quandary. By judicial fiat, the Supreme Judicial Court declared that there is no "rational basis" in the law for defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. For centuries we have enjoyed the fruits of de Tocqueville’s remark, but today, not only do we stand to lose the "order" that naturally forms the foundation of our society but also the right to choose how our communities and society will be ordered. At peril is not just the definition of marriage but the very voting booths that Americans have died for in the past and die for this very day.

Where to begin? It seems that decisions by judges that aren’t to Hobbib’s liking have been reached arbitrarily, that is, by "fiat." Hobbib misrepresents what the SJC said. What the court did say was that the current marriage laws were discriminatory against "a defined class." The SJC rejected civil unions as a substitute for "marriage" between same-sex couples — even if couples in civil unions then stood in precisely the same legal position as married heterosexual couples — because "separate is seldom, if ever, equal." What of order? Community? And the sanctity of the voting booth? De Tocqueville’s concept of natural order was pre-Darwinian, but it anticipated and prophesied a kind of social change akin to the biological evolution that Charles Darwin posited 24 years later. But to Hobbibites, Darwin is suspect, if not heretical. Communities change. Anyone who doubts that should look at Boston today. In a Hobbibite world it appears that a referendum on racial segregation would be welcome. How about one limiting the rights of Jews or Mormons? Voting may be sacred, but it is often the last refuge of scoundrels. How about this, Hobbib — let’s vote on whether bishops and cardinals who shielded pedophile priests should be prosecuted.

Hobbib: Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, our forefathers spilled blood in the streets of Charlestown and on the green in Lexington so as not to have their fate dictated from afar by unaccountable, unelected individuals. Today we face a similar battle, and it is up to our elected officials to fight for our rights as voters as they deliberate the proposed amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and woman.

Ah, yes, the Minutemen. It appears Hobbib is confusing the SJC with George III. But let’s move on. Our judges are not unaccountable. They are, however, consciously insulated by John Adams’s constitution from the likes of the Hobbibites. Damned inconvenient, eh? They are nominated by an elected official, the governor; confirmed by other elected officials, the Governor’s Council; and subject to removal by other elected officials, the legislature. Reminder: we live in a republic, not a democracy.

Hobbib: Our Constitution and our democratic system are based on an equal distribution of power that says the judiciary explains and applies the law and the governor and the Legislature have authority for setting laws related to marriage. Does this Legislature want to bear the ramifications of being the ones to upset this historical balance of power and allow a violation of the Constitution?

First of all, it’s the marriage laws that violate the Constitution. The legislature can amend the Constitution if it wants, which I think would be a travesty. But the power is there. It is, however, a daunting process. As for elected officials’ being robbed of a chance to vote on either gay marriage or civil unions: they had the right and the chance. But in recent years House Speaker Thomas Finneran squelched it. So the SJC stepped in, when citizens filed suit, as law and custom allow. Are gays and lesbians entitled to citizenship, Hobbib?

Hobbib: With all due respect to the judges who determined that same-sex marriage is rational for society, why are Massachusetts citizens excluded from having a voice on the redefinition of marriage? Over the years, we have seen many examples of well-intended rulings having gone awry due to lack of sufficient open debate.

From the rush to order forced busing in Boston to the decision to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance to Judge Maria Lopez’s allowing transsexual Charles "Ebony" Horton to roam the streets of Boston after sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy, the fact remains that judges are not always right. The intentions may have been good, but the possible consequences were not well understood.

First of all, I find it hard to believe that Hobbib really respects the justices. One man, one vote is not the rule of the land, as the "activist" US Supreme Court demonstrated when it handed the White House to popular loser and anti-gay-marriage candidate George W. Bush. So it seems the Hobbibites want to pick and choose when we are a republic and when we are a direct-vote democracy. As to his contention that the "activist" decisions related to busing, the Pledge of Allegiance, and Ebony Horton demonstrate that "judges are not always right," only a small-minded, bigoted person awash in fear and ignorance could write these words. That, however, well sums up the Hobbibites — in and outside the Catholic Church. Intolerance is their creed.

Hobbib’s suggestion that "forced busing" to integrate Boston’s schools — which were then racially imbalanced and therefore in violation of federal law, just like schools in Mississippi and Alabama — was ordered by judges who did not "well" understand or consider the "possible consequences" only further demonstrates how hollow and pathetically lame are the arguments against the SJC’s decisions.

Since Hobbib ludicrously places the decision of my wife, retired judge Maria Lopez, in the case of Ebony Horton on the same plane as decisions regarding desegregation and the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, let me address the facts and the issues here, albeit in a very limited way, for the first time since September 2000.

First, Hobbib — like almost everyone who writes or broadcasts about the case — should get his facts straight. The sentence handed down by Judge Lopez did not allow Horton "to roam the streets." Rather, it was precisely because of her very clear understanding of possible consequences that Lopez made the decision she did. It has been almost three and a half years since Horton was sentenced — that is, since he was placed on probation. Does Hobbib, and all those who share his views, wonder why we’ve heard nothing about Horton’s continued predatory criminal behavior?

Indeed, the only "possible consequences [that] were not well understood" by Lopez lay in the unbridled racist, sexist, and execrable vitriol spewed at her, her children, and her husband from the mouths and pens of those in and outside the media who share Hobbib’s simplistically black-and-white views of right and wrong and good and evil. Hobbib does correctly note that "judges are not always right." But that only leads one to wonder who he believes is "always right" or infallible? Perhaps the leaders of the Catholic Church?

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Issue Date: February 13 - 19, 2004
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