Actually, yeah, I wish you would say die

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is introducing a bill into the legislature that would allow him to circumvent the state attorney general and allow him to go to the state's Supreme Judicial Court to seek a stay of it's November decision that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the equal protection provisions of the state constitution.

In the wake of that decision, a deeply divided legislature managed on a third try to come up a "compromise" proposed amendment that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples but explicitly allow for same-sex "civil unions." To become part of the constitution, the same measure must be passed again next year and then approved in a referendum in 2006 - meaning the stay Romney wants would have to keep the issue in legal limbo for over 2-1/2 years.

Romney had asked Attorney General Tom Reilly to request the stay, but Reilly declined, saying the governor had offered no new basis for an appeal.

"I would like the right to be able to represent the people and my own office before the courts of Massachusetts on an important matter such as the one that we're referring to today," Romney told reporters in Boston. ...

"I feel very deeply that the people's voice should be heard - that a matter such as the definition of marriage is fundamental in our society, and that the citizens should have a right to be heard," Romney said.

But of course citizens do have the right to be heard - that's what the amending process is supposedly about. Since that is so transparently obvious as to make his statements nonsensical, it leaves the question as to whether Romney, who was firmly in favor of an amendment banning same-sex marriage outright, is acting out of conviction or just storing up images for a re-election campaign. Frankly, I strongly suspect the latter.

For one thing, it's unlikely his proposal will pass the state Senate, where opposition to the proposed amendment was strong. And even if it by some strange chance did, it's very unlikely the Court would issue such a stay, especially considering the length of time involved. It's even hard to imagine on what grounds he could argue for one.

"The people should decide?" The Court says "That's not a legal argument, that's a bumper sticker." Okay, the Justices wouldn't actually say that. But they could without loss of accuracy. Instead, they'd be more likely to say "Your own submission refers to a constitutional process for a decision by the public. Staying our ruling will not advance that process and refusing to stay it won't hinder it. Denied."

Would he try to argue "irreparable harm" "To who?" the Court could shoot back. "No one is harmed by our ruling, no one is prevented or deterred from marriage, no one is denied or inhibited in exercising any right or privilege they had previously. So where is the harm? Indeed, those benefiting from the ruling could well be harmed by a stay, since if you fail in your quest for an amendment they will have been denied the legal benefits of marriage for that time. Denied."

"It's to avoid confusion," he says. "Our ruling was not at all confusing, it was quite clear. Are you suggesting that as long as there is an attempt to modify the constitution, there is 'confusion' and our decision must be stayed? In that event, what is to prevent a new proposal if this one fails, and then another if that fails, and so on? That is a recipe for perpetual delay and justice delayed is justice denied. So is your motion."

"Okay, the truth: I think same-sex marriage is icky." "Denied and go away."

There simply is no reason to believe the quest for a stay would be successful even if he got the authority to ask for one. This is a waste of time. The fact that Romney certainly knows this tells me he's just grandstanding for the benefit of the bigots he hopes to have on his side come next election.

Unless, of course, it's just a revelation of his own bigotry.

Footnote: In the Washington Post for April 13, two anthropologists discuss the role marriage has traditionally served in a variety of cultures. It's too long to post the whole thing here, but this is a fair chunk of it.

The most famous of these unions were the ones most foreign to Western Victorian society: marriage between a woman and several men; marriage between a man and several women; forms of "visiting" marriage, whereby a man might visit his wife but not live with her. As anthropologists assembled more reliable data, they found it difficult to produce a definition of human marriage that would hold true for all its socially legitimate forms.

Marriage generally functioned to provide a "legitimate" identity to children - a kind of "last name." Yet, the structure of these arrangements was extraordinarily diverse: Biological paternity was not universally the basis of identity - as, indeed, it is not in the case of adoption in America. In many cases, the biological father was distinct from the legal father produced by the marriage contract and ceremony. Alternatively, it could be the mother's family and not the father that bestowed identity on a child. ...

Marriage, in other words, is not only diverse across cultures but also dynamic and changing in America's own history. We live in a pluralist society, where marriage is not the only form of union or of mutual care in our society. ...

Marriage is, then, foundational because it provides a recognized form of identity and security for children in society. Its function is not universally to produce children but to provide legitimate forms for their care. ...

As for marriage as a legal institution, the ethnographic record makes clear that law expresses the dominant ethics of the group. Our history reflects the evolution of our values, and we as Americans are most proud of our deepening tradition of civil rights. To deny marriage to same-sex couples, as President Bush proposes, expresses a rejection of this civil rights tradition and a regression to a politics of exclusion.

I would highly recommend reading the entire article.