| While the Initiative Petition process allows our citizens to have a say in the development and passing of laws and to amend our Constitution, it does not include the authority to use this process to deny individual civil rights to a minority of our citizens. John Adams, who wrote our Massachusetts Constitution [a model for our Federal Constitution] and James Madison, the "Father" of our Federal Constitution, and other writers and framers of our Federal and Massachusetts Constitutions provided us with a Constitutional Democracy, not a pure democracy, with three equal branches of government: Executive, Legislative and judicial. In addition to interpreting the law, the judicial branch of government protects the individual civil rights of a minority of our citizens from what john Adams, James Madison and our forefathers considered to be the "overbearing of the majority." Constitutional scholars have referred to this concept as the "oppression of the majority," the "tyranny of the majority," or the "injustice of the majority." How can a majority of our citizens vote on the status and well-being of a minority of our citizens? Our forefathers had the wisdom to know that a pure democracy does not work. The proposed amendment to our Commonwealth's Constitution involves the denial of certain civil rights to a legitimate, highly productive, taxpaying minority of our citizens. So this issue is strictly within the purview of the Judicial Branch of our government. This is why we the people should not vote on this petitioned amendment to our Commonwealth's Constitution that would deny same gender couples and their children the protection of legal civil marriage. Associate Justice John Greany in a recent decision wrote that this proposed amendment would be "discrimination in its rawest form." Responding to the writer's comment about "judges bent on making laws from the bench," the historical decision of the Supreme Judicial Court on November 18, 2003 did not change one single word in the laws of Massachusetts that affect civil marriage and did not redefine marriage. Only the marriage license application form need modification. Fulfilling its constitutional responsibility and authority, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (SJC) determined that our Commonwealth's Constitution provides for all citizens to be treated equally under all laws including the law governing civil marriage. Therefore, the religious institutions and churches continue to have every right to follow their religious marriage traditions, rules and practices. Our forefathers had the wisdom to separate religion from our government. The brave men and women of our Armed Forced are fighting and dying in Iraq in our effort to persuade the iraqi government to institute a Constitutional democracy, where minorities will have equal civil rights and a proportionate share of the oil revenues. The Shiite majority is violently objecting. With a 65 percent majority, the Shiites prefer a pure democracy where they can rule with an iron hand, which could bring about the "tyranny of the majority" that the framers of our Massachusetts and Federal Constitutions so carefully and judiciously avoided. We are indeed all fortunate to be citizens of Massachusetts and the United States of America, constitutional democracies that provide for three equal branches of government wit the civil rights of all of our citizens fully protected. This is precisely why we live in the greatest country in the world. Bill Massidda Wilbraham |
