One major thing we don't have to worry about in Massachusetts

One thing to be grateful for as we head into the most intense part of this year's election campaigns is that Massachusetts is not facing a statewide referendum on gay marriage. These campaigns cost millions of dollars, and burn through thousands and thousands of volunteer hours. At best, they leave the states that go through them with the status quo. At worst, they write contemporary prejudice into the state constitution for years, maybe generations, to come.

California, the second state to allow gay marriage, is going through a high-stakes campaign like this right now, but Massachusetts isn't. MassEquality stopped the proposed amendment to ban marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Massachusetts, which, if it had passed, would have been on the ballot this November 4. The ACLU of Massachusetts is proud of the role we played in creating MassEquality, and the work that we and our supporters did to secure the historic defeat of this amendment at last year's ConCon.

But keep an eye on this: the Globe reports today that anti-gay activists are gradually making progress with plans to hold a referendum on restoring the recently repealed 1913 law that prevented out-of-state couples from coming here to marry. Originally designed for use against interracial couples, Gov. Mitt Romney revived the archaic law to prevent out-of-state gay couples from marrying here.