Word: referendum
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...state’s Constitution, this time absolutely banning same-sex marriage, with no provision granted for civil unions—a measure that Romney supports. This time, anti-same sex marriage advocates won’t be satisfied unless the measure is put before a statewide referendum, which will inevitably generate a bitter battle and could even strip thousands of people of their recently-won rights. Amazingly, even after the Legislature’s momentous decision, Romney still professes that the people should be given a direct vote on the issue, as though their will has not already been...
...cause for serious concern both for Massachusetts residents and for all those who support equal marriage rights across the nation. As it stands, Massachusetts serves as a model for what all of America should seek to attain: a community in which same-sex marriage has become normalized. The referendum bid threatens to needlessly destabilize this harmonious social atmosphere. Never before has a referendum been proposed in Massachusetts that seeks to dissolve the rights of a minority group that had been previously guaranteed. In fact, the Massachusetts state constitution explicitly prohibits referenda concerning religious organizations for precisely this reason: the correct...
...framing Japan's Sept. 11 parliamentary election as a referendum on his postal-privatization plan and outmaneuvering his rivals with dextrous political campaigning, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has scored his greatest victory, helping the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to its biggest majority since 1986. The encore, however, could prove trickier. Koizumi's postal-reform bill, aimed at breaking Japan's $3 trillion postal service into four separate companies by 2017, will be re-submitted at a special Diet session this week and is all but guaranteed to pass. His plans beyond that are hazy. Koizumi has promised...
...Kurds (though it is resoundingly opposed by the Sunnis)--have left the country in a more precarious position. "The big conversation in our shop these days," says a military-intelligence officer, "is whether it would be a good thing if the new constitution is voted down [in the public referendum] next month...
Schwarzenegger refused to comment further on his motives, saying through an aide only that he would veto the bill "out of respect for the will of the people" (voters passed a referendum in 2000 restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman). But Schwarzenegger won't have the last word. A case about the constitutionality of gay marriage will probably be heard by the California Supreme Court next year; similar lawsuits are pending in New Jersey, New York and Washington. With several states having amended their constitutions to ban gay marriage--and Massachusetts the only...