The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Calling Ed Whelan

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There was a fascinating exchange between Santorum and Romney on homosexual marriage law in Massachusetts. I myself do not know whose description of the events was correct. A real expert on this area of the law, who follows these cases extremely closely, is Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (full disclosure: Santorum was affiliated with the EPPC for years, so Whelan might defer to somebody else on the subject, and I would welcome his recommendation for an unbiased person to give a good answer. I trust Whelan entirely, but HE might not want to appear to be holding forth on his former Fellow.) Anyway, I would love somebody knowledgeable to weigh in on this. SOMEbody is misinterpreting or honestly mis-describing what happened.

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kingsmill| 12.15.11 @ 11:58PM

Santorum accurately described Mitt's passive approach to the Mass SJC homosexual marriage decision.He adopted a hand's Off approach publicly. Internally his executive branch facilitated adoption of procedures to enforce the decision.He then finessed his PR approach to preserve his future viability as a Republican primary contender. The usual litany of Romney double dealing.

Quin| 12.16.11 @ 12:09AM

Thanks for the informed info. Santorum needs to play up this dispute for all he's worth.

Rob| 12.16.11 @ 12:35AM

Ch. 3, Article V of the Massachusetts Constitution defines the Judiciary Power says, "All causes of marriage, divorce, and alimony, and all appeals from the judges of probate shall be heard and determined by the governor and council, until the legislature shall, by law, make other provision." In other words, the state constitution explicitly states that elected officials and NOT the judiciary power shall make policy on causes of marriage. The Supreme Judicial Court has NO constitutional role in MA regarding causes of marriage, but ignored the state constitution on this matter. Romney has one of the most zealous records in favor of homosexual causes among all governors in the nation, except on the specific point that he wishes to reserve the word "marriage" to unions of a man and woman, and so yielded to the court while advocating a constitutional amendment that would make same-sex civil unions equal in every way to traditional marriages save only in name. He could have sought the removal of the justices of the supreme judicial court but chose not to do so. Mass Resistance can provide further info on this. www.massresistance.org/

MikeN| 12.16.11 @ 2:30AM

Romney arranged for marriage documents to reflect the Court's ruling, removing husband and wife designations. Incidentally, the current passport applications also no longer say mother and father.