Time's Up

I'm sure that Herald Columnist Joe Fitzgerald thinks that this is a victory of the "disenfranchized" over the "militant gay lobby," but Tom Reilly has finally made his decision and certified the anti-marriage ballot initiative.

The good news is that this effectively kills the 2006 Travaglini-Lees Compromise amendment. With the news that a couple of Trav's lieutenants are switching their votes, plus the unwillingness of anti-marriage legislators to back any initiative that includes civil unions, the vote next week is almost a foregone conclusion. In addition, this gives Commonwealth residents three more years to come to terms with marriage equality. More and more of them will realize that, to paraphrase Jefferson, that equal marriage rights neither picks their pocket nor breaks their leg.

The bad news, of course, is that Reilly has decided that it's fine to put people's civil rights on the ballot. Not only that, but we will all be subject to three years of hysteria from both sides -- something that we all thought we had put behind us in May 2004. Nothing horrible has happened now that 6,500 gays and lesbians are married, but millions of dollars are going to be spent in an effort to take away the rights they were granted. Aren't we all tired of this already? Reilly himself said it was time to "move on" yet when he is given the opportunity to do so, he refuses.