Deval at the Debate

Deval did great at the debate in Springfield last night. My favorite part was when Kerry Healey and Christy Mihos were getting into it and Deval said to them, "alright, you two". The way he said it was perfect.

The debate turned to gay marriage for a moment when this question was asked to Kerry Healey: "Ms. Healey, Gov. Romney has dusted off and enforced a 1913 state law to prevent gay couples from other states from coming to Massachusetts to marry. My question is as governor, would you support this 1913 law, or would you file legislation to abolish this law and push to eliminate it?"

Healey's answer was exactly what I would have expected. She said that the courts upheld the law. We already know that. The law is on the books. So would she support legislation to abolish the 1913 law? No.

"Well, I think that what we've seen is that the courts have upheld this law. They do believe that it is correct. I think that each state should have the right to decide for itself what the laws of that state determining marriage should be. So I don't know that we would ever have any laws here that should suggest that we should control the definition of marriage in other states, but I definitely think that we have a right to determine our own laws on marriage and that's appropriate."

Notice at the end of her statement she adds, "I definitely think that we have a right to determine our own laws on marriage". She is referring to the current amendment before the legislature that would let the entire state vote on whether or not gay couples can marry.

Deval Patrick's answer to the question speaks for itself.

"Well, first of all, I think the court got it right on marriage equality because all the court did was affirm the principle that people come before their government as equals, and that's something I've been working on most of my professional life. I think the 1913 law has some very troubling origins. It seems to have come on the books just at the time when jurisdictions were looking to prevent marriage between blacks and whites and that worries me.

I understand that the court has affirmed the law, but the question was, 'is it something that ought to remain on our books?' And I think that something that seems to have origins as questionable and as discriminatory as they seem to be in this case, ought to come off our books."

I don't have to say anything more. Watch the candidates debate the 1913 law here.