Back of the bus

So the Massachusetts legislators "did their duty" according to the directive of the Supreme Judicial Court, and 61 (out of 200) legislators voted to advance the proposed amendment to ban gay marriage. If opponents of gay marriage can hold 50 of those legislators next year, they can put the amendment on the ballot in November 2008, and my neighbors will have a chance to vote on whether gay men and lesbians should keep the right to marry. The only silver lining in this outcome is that 139 legislators voted against advancing the amendment; it's clearly the sense of the legislature that gay marriage is not a bad thing, and that gay people deserve to keep the right to marry.

Still, I worry that my neighbors may not agree.