Did Boston Globe reporter tip off gay lobby to MassResistance plans for Referendum Petition to stop "1913 Law" repeal?

The day after our conversation with reporter, the Mass. House and Senate quickly passed new versions of "1913 Law repeal" - to make it harder for Referendum petition to stop it.

August 1, 2008

On Tuesday afternoon, July 29, the Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to repeal the "1913 Law". This law had prohibited out-of-state homosexual couples to get "married" in Massachusetts, and then going back to their home states as a "married" couple, and causing legal havoc. Repealing this law was a huge goal of the homosexual movement, and the Massachusetts political leadership was proud to help them do it.

The following day, in our July 30 MassResistance email update we described how we planned to do a "Referendum Petition" on the "1913 Law" repeal, to legally suspend it from taking effect until it gets voted on by the people. But now that may not be possible.

The Legislature passes it a second time!

But we were unaware that about an hour before that email went out the Legislature acted to stop us. In an incredible move, on Wednesday afternoon, July 31, the House and Senate both quickly re-passed the bill again - this time with special "emergency act" language to thwart the referendum process. (And of course, none of the Boston media mentioned this "double vote" in their reports.)

We've never heard of that happening before. If a bill is an "emergency act" then it's labeled as such before it's passed -- not the day after it's passed. Something was pretty rotten.

Did a Boston Globe reporter tell the gay lobby of our plans?

MassResistance was in the State House on Tuesday as the House was debating and voting on the bill. During the day the idea of a Referendum Petition came up. Right after the vote took place, a Boston Globe reporter, Eric Moskowitz, was interviewing us. We mentioned the idea to him. But we told no one else.

In Moskowitz' Boston Globe article the next morning (Wednesday) the Referendum possibility wasn't mentioned. But then, during the day on Wednesday the House and Senate leadership both re-passed it!  They rammed the bill through with the new language to thwart a referendum petition.  Why now?

We called Moskowitz' boss, Frank Phillips, at the Globe's State House office. Phillips said he knew nothing about it, but it was "possible" that Moskowitz had talked to the gay lobby for a reaction. (But if so, why not mention it in the article?) This morning we called up Moskowitz and asked him. He denied telling anyone anything. But the whole thing is very strange.

Had Moskowitz included our idea in his newspaper article, it would have been transparent to everyone what the House and Senate were doing, and why they were doing it. It was certainly a newsworthy idea. But he was silent. And even afterwards, in their longer reports, none of the media mentioned anythng about what happened.

We underestimated

Frankly, in those insane last two days of the 2008 session -- which ended Thursday -- with hundreds of bills being jammed through, it truly didn't occur to us that the Legislature would, or could, do something like that. Unfortunately, we forgot that this is Massachusetts.

We definitely underestimated some things, including the treachery of our politicians and their obsession to push their social agenda without any interference from the citizens.

What a terrible, dishonest way to run our government!

Read Wednesday July 30 Globe article by Eric Moskowitz, "A curb on gay marriage will fall"
(With special bonus big picture of pro-family Republican Rep. Jeffrey Perry caving in and voting for it.)