News Analysis

Yea, Speaker DiMasi !!
DiMasi Will Be Great for Those Who Oppose “Gay Marriage” and the Teaching of Homosexuality to School Children

By Atty. J. Edward Pawlick
      Those who oppose “gay marriage” and the teaching of homosexuality to school children should be delighted with the election of Sal DiMasi as Speaker of the House.
     At last we will know who our friends and our opponents are with Tom Finneran gone and DiMasi in charge.
     DiMasi is honest in his beliefs. He wants “gay marriage” and “gay/straight alliances.” There is no doubt in anyone’s mind what he is about. He even breaks the Rules of the House, holds secret meetings of the Rules Committee (which are strictly forbidden) and secret votes and then brags to Bay Windows about what he is doing for them.
     Finneran, on the other hand, always assures social conservatives that he is on our side but he is never able to quite make anything happen for us.
     It Gets Even Better
     As if that isn’t enough, we now have John Rogers, who appears to be solidly on our side, taking the number two position in leadership in the House.
     Therefore, we have moved from two leaders who are against us, one solidly so and the other pretending to be with us, to only one person who is solidly against us and one who is with us. And we understand that DiMasi has assured Rogers that he will allow the Reps to vote on these issues instead of stubbornly preventing it as Finneran did.
       Finneran Is Truly A Legend
      Sally and I first ran into Tom Finneran back when we were novices and our lobbying was being done by the Mass. Family Institute and the Catholic Conference. Sally went to a breakfast with the Speaker and came back with a glowing report. She was about as excited about this wonderful man as she could get. His words inspired her.
     After a while we were invited to a private “tea” with this great person in his sumptuous suite at the State House. I was also impressed by his honesty and sincerity. When the House later voted overwhelmingly in 2002 to violate the state Constitution and not vote on the Protection of Marriage Amendment, I believed that it wasn’t his fault. It was because they hadn’t worked hard enough (even though they obtained so many signatures that their opponents didn’t bother to challenge the results).
     But still, I had a nagging doubt.
     Then Came This Year
     Then came this year. Finneran did a “brilliant” move at the very beginning but lost by only a couple of votes. No one seemed to notice that his top lieutenants voted against his measure, which would have passed if they had voted with him.
     After we had gone down to ignominious defeat this spring, Brian Camenker came up with the brilliant idea of Removing Justice Margaret Marshall and her three followers and replacing them with new judges who would obey the law.
     But there was one problem. There has never been anyone more slippery than good old Tom. He couldn’t hide behind the President of the Senate as he did in 2002 when he blamed it all on Tom Birmingham, who promptly lost the Governor’s race in the Primary and correctly blamed it all on the Protection of Marriage Amendment.
     We couldn’t believe our eyes this spring as Finneran chased us around and around in circles. We couldn’t be sure we were right in our estimates. It took weeks to assure ourselves that our assessment was accurate. We can’t describe how many hours we spent running here and there in vain as we attempted to play by the rules.
     Finally, we understood and began to strike back, even sending airplanes with banners over the Cape and over the Speaker’s retreat down there. His wife did not enjoy having the neighbors know what their famous neighbor was really about. We had radio ads on WBZ about the Speaker.
      So, did we really have an effect upon Birmingham and Finneran? We know we did on Birmingham because he said so. Did our efforts also drive Finneran out? We undoubtedly did on Finneran also but we will never know for sure. We have never believed the “federal charges” against Finneran to which the Globe keeps referring. He is too smart to do anything that stupid.
     We will not remove DiMasi this fall because he has no opponent, but Senate President Travaglini does with an excellent Republican medical doctor, Gilbert Lavoie, running against him.
     If the conservatives can remove Birmingham, Finneran, Travaglini and Judge Marshall and her cohorts, while Emile Goguen was reelected by 71% of the vote in the Primary, maybe we can start getting some respect after all.
     It’s worth working for. Please work during this campaign for good candidates everywhere. But don’t be discouraged if we don’t win everything the first year. If we can get three, four or more good people in the Legislature, that would be a good start. If we can get 10 or more that would be fantastic. It would be enough to make Sal DiMasi very nervous and more willing to listen to us.
     It is worth working for.