Letter to the Editor
Please Get Your Facts Straight and Stop Lying
       In the radio ad you are running you state that you passed a amendment to the Constitution forbidding gay marriage and that the State congress violated the Constitution by not sending the Amendment to the voters.
       And that is where you are incorrect, our Constitution calls for two consecutive passages in separate years of an amendment for it to go to the voters.
       Based on the results of the 2004 election when several members of the state congress who vote for the amendment lost there seats that changed the vote and the amendment failed. So our congress followed the Constitution to the letter.
       So please stop lying to the people of the state and gets yours facts correct. Also get your facts straight regarding the courts ruling. Judge Marshall was not the sole vote that determined the case. Based on the court system laid out in the Constitution, when a Supreme Court decision is made it is Majority rule. In
this case the final vote was 4-3.
       The people in this state are much smarter then you think and will not fall for your radical religious agenda. Stop your lies and give up. As a heterosexual male I have no problem with gay men and women being recognized as married by the state.       Craig Foster

       Editor's Response: Our Radio Ads Are Totally Accurate
       Although we thank you for pointing out the problem of sound-bites, we emphatically disagree that our radio ads are not accurate. You really know how to hurt a guy!
       I must first note that I am passing over the myriad of misspelling and other errors in your manuscript which have not been corrected by us.
       In addition, although your history lesson is not accurate, you do raise one important point, perhaps inadvertently. When one is limited to 150-words as on radio, it's a serious challenge. When we said that we "passed" an Amendment forbidding gay marriage, you would not be wrong in raising your eyebrows. But we were also not wrong in writing it that way. We have what a lawyer would say is an "inchoate" right, i.e., a right that has not been totally perfected.
       The many thousands of volunteers who gathered 130,000 signatures, many times the number required, and the 500 citizens who showed up at the State House on the day of the vote (June 17, 2002), were shocked to watch as Sen. Birmingham refused to allow the legislature to vote on the Amendment. Everyone there (including the Boston Globe) agreed that it would have passed if Birmingham had followed the law. If that were not true, then Birmingham would have had no reason to block the vote.
       Birmingham's conduct was a clear violation of the state Constitution as later expressed by a unanimous SJC (including Margaret Marshall) on Dec. 20, 2002. But Judge Marshall refused to do anything about it because if the Amendment were passed, she could not rule in favor of gay marriage.
       So the citizens did everything legally that was required to pass the "Protection of Marriage" Amendment. Lawyers inform us that some day soon, some new Justices may say exactly that.
       As for the 4-3 ruling, you are really reaching. We made it very clear that this was a deeply divided court with three of the Associate Justices voting with Marshall and three passionately opposing her. That enabled her to break the tie and make the Ruling as she had planned. We say that very clearly on the radio in order to point out that the state is not solidly behind Margaret Marshall as we hear from the media. Even her own Justices are deeply divided.