Pack up, we're moving

July 6, 2006 3:19 PM

Boston's population woesmay have been partially solved.
posted by RTQP (29 comments total)

Is it really difficult to at least make an attempt at clarity when crafting your post? And to editorialize as well? Cripes, if you had a spelling mistake, you'd have hit the trifecta.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 3:24 PM on July 6, 2006

However, a group of "city leaders" are opposing the amendment, including:
Patriots owner Robert Kraft and his wife, Myra; real estate developer Robert Beal; Mayor Thomas M. Menino; chamber president Paul Guzzi, and more than 20 members of the chamber's board of directors; architect Graham Gund; author Robert B. Parker; venture capitalist Richard M. Burnes Jr.; Boston Foundation president Paul S. Grogan; and Stacey Lucchino, who is married to Red Sox chief executive Larry Lucchino.

From this related link.
posted by arcticwoman at 3:25 PM on July 6, 2006

However, a group of "city leaders" are opposing the amendment

Most Massachusetts people east of the Connecticut river oppose the amendment. Even some people who nearly had apoplexies when the first gay marriages happened-- because it turns out that it doesn't affect the daily lives of anybody, except maybe the gay couples at tax time.

Personally, I hope the amendment makes it to the ballot, crooked signature collecting and all. Because it won't pass and then the out-of-state homophobes who set up camp here will fucking go home, and the right-wing dickheads who actually live here will be out of options. And Governor Romney's presidential aspirations will look even more ludicrous than his funny underpants and six wives.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:53 PM on July 6, 2006

How does the second link relate to the first? They're both about Massachusetts? What?
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:56 PM on July 6, 2006

How does the second link relate to the first? They're both about Massachusetts?

I think the author is insinuating that the 180 New York gay couples in question are going to move to Boston (because that's the only community in Massachusetts) and replace 30,000 people that have moved away.

I don't know if cloning is involved, or he's merely insinuating that they will take space-age amphetamines and do the work of 30,000.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:02 PM on July 6, 2006

i don't think the only ramifications of these events would be the 180 couples considering a change of location - new york has declared itself hostile to glbt, and massachusetts is close by and offering marriage licenses.

sorry, didn't mean to make anything think too hard. i ate a buick once.
posted by RTQP at 4:06 PM on July 6, 2006

It's good that people are leaving the Boston area. Real estate and rent prices are insane.
posted by goatfish at 4:08 PM on July 6, 2006

Mmmm, space-age amphetamines....
posted by mr_roboto at 4:24 PM on July 6, 2006

Everyone's moving away 'cause Mayor Curley scared 'em off.

He's pretty mean, y'know.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:25 PM on July 6, 2006

It's an awful decision by our court here--procreation matters, but not enough to stop infertile couples from marrying, but it is enough to stop gay couples already with children from marrying at all--and one that, as Judge Kaye says, is a sad commentary on our society. That said, we're not running to Massachusetts anytime soon (it's really not that fab).

"I am confident that future generations will look back on today's decision as an unfortunate misstep." -- Chief Judge Kaye
posted by amberglow at 4:31 PM on July 6, 2006

So, why are so many people leaving Boston? The first link said affordable housing, schools, and better jobs -- any Boston people here?
posted by salvia at 5:02 PM on July 6, 2006

YOU CAN'T HAVE MY APARTMENT, I JUST SIGNED THE LEASE, HANDS OFF
posted by Saucy Intruder at 5:06 PM on July 6, 2006

(yeah, it's the housing prices, and the fact that wages nationally aren't keeping up with gas and housing prices. We are paying an ungodly amount of money for a 2 BR in Arlington, and if I wasn't about to become a law-firm associate, we would have been stuck with old appliances, no parking, absentee landlord, and all the usual horrors of urban apartment life.)
posted by Saucy Intruder at 5:10 PM on July 6, 2006

So, why are so many people leaving Boston? The first link said affordable housing, schools, and better jobs -- any Boston people here?

I don't think schools have much to do with it-- look at Massachusetts numbers and tell me that people are really moving south for better schools. Affordable housing and jobs? Sure. The housing market is truly ridiculous and the job market's lousy.

The truth is that the population center of theUS has been moving south and west for generations and there's lots of suggestions as to why that is.

Personally, I want all the chaff shaken out. If people aren't committed to living here (and it can be tough for some people), I'm glad that they'll leave if they have the opportunity. A lot of it is remnants of people who came duing the tech boom of the late 90's/early 2000s-- a lot of people moved here and a lot of graduates stayed who wouldn't normally. They're not finding the advancement they hoped for now so they're leaving. And hopefully they'll find a place that is a better fit for them.

This is coupled with the fact that Massachusetts exports TONS of dirtballs, townies and scumbags to Florida for some reason. And I would like to apologize to Florida for that-- we're not all like our embassadors to Dade County and beyond.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:16 PM on July 6, 2006

NY does that too, Mayor--all Northeastern states send tons of people to FL each year.
posted by amberglow at 5:29 PM on July 6, 2006

I don't get why immigration (both legal and illegal) isn't making your numbers grow, like ours are.
posted by amberglow at 5:31 PM on July 6, 2006

More from Kaye's dissent--really great stuff: ..."Simply put, a history or tradition of discrimination — no matter how entrenched — does not make the discrimination constitutional," Judge Kaye wrote in her 27-page dissent. "As history has well taught us, separate is inherently unequal."

"The claim that marriage has always had a single and unalterable meaning is a plain distortion of history," she wrote. Until well into the 19th century, for instance, she said, wives were considered the property of their husbands and married women could not own property or enter into contracts.

"Only since the mid-twentieth century has the institution of marriage come to be understood as a relationship between two equal partners, founded upon shared intimacy and mutual financial and emotional support."

She said that while encouraging opposite-sex couples to marry could be good for the welfare of children, denying marriage to same-sex couples did not serve that interest in any way.

"The state's interest in a stable society is rationally advanced when families are established and remain intact, irrespective of the gender of the spouses," Judge Kaye wrote.

"The ability or desire to procreate is not a prerequisite for marriage," she said. "The elderly are permitted to marry, and many same-sex couples do indeed have children."

She noted that the United States Supreme Court has held that even prison inmates have a fundamental right to marry, despite the limits of prison life that may make it impossible to conceive children.

And she said there were other legitimate ways to encourage people to raise children, such as subsidizing child care or requiring employers to provide family leave for parents.

"Marriage is about much more than producing children, yet same-sex couples are excluded from the entire spectrum of protections that come with civil marriage — purportedly to encourage other people to procreate," she wrote.

Judge Kaye's dissent was a departure from the dry legal language of the main decision. She noted that the plaintiffs in the cases before the court represented a cross-section of ordinary New Yorkers, including a police officer, a doctor, a teacher and an artist, who wanted "only to live full lives, raise their children, better their communities and be good neighbors."

Most people, she noted, look forward to a wedding "as among the most significant events of their lives," and she said it was wrong for gays and lesbians to be denied marriage "because of who they love."

...
posted by amberglow at 5:41 PM on July 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

That said, we're not running to Massachusetts anytime soon (it's really not that fab).

Yankees suck!
posted by ericb at 6:44 PM on July 6, 2006

It's good that people are leaving the Boston area. Real estate and rent prices are insane.

Everyone's moving away 'cause Mayor Curley scared 'em off.

Keep up the good work, Mayor. And they don't all move to Florida. Southern New Hamster is awash with the fools. they still mostly work in MA, so they get to pay both MA income and NH real-estate taxes. Geniuses.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:46 PM on July 6, 2006

Great post framing for one's own blog. This, however, is MetaFilter, and your submissions both belong to the public and reflect on the site. Please take some pains to compose your FPPs more in the style of a news article (or rather, short blurb), where information is actually given, context provided, and links explained in such a fashion as to encourage people to click on them.

NY ruling may drive gay residents to MA, combatting Boston's plummetting population.

says in less than double the same space everything your "clever" FPP didn't. There's even room to add "But will it be enough?"
posted by Eideteker at 6:50 PM on July 6, 2006

From the article: The ruling said lawmakers have a legitimate interest in protecting children by limiting marriage to heterosexual couples.

Protected from...? I see from Amberglow's link (thanks for that) that means "for example, it could be argued that children benefit from being raised by two natural parents, a mother and a father, rather than by gay or lesbian couples."

Has anyone, ever made that argument and backed it up with any research that survived a review process? I may be living in a liberal echo chamber but I can't recall hearing about a single one, yet dozens from the contrary camp.

This smacks of legislation via the fallacy of 'icky'. Bad judges, bad.
posted by Sparx at 6:52 PM on July 6, 2006

Under rational basis review, any legitimate explanation for the legislature's act (regardless of how stupid it is, and regardless of the legislature's actual motive) is enough to comport with due process and equal protection. So the court's analysis has to stop there if that's the standard being applied.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:02 PM on July 6, 2006

Apropos of the bizarre structure of this FPP, does anyone know of any stories about gay couples (or single gay people) who have moved to Massachusetts to take advantage of our enlightened legal system? I'm sure there are some wonderful heartwarming stories out there, but I haven't seen of them.
posted by alms at 7:05 PM on July 6, 2006

I thought the bed bugs were what was scaring people off.
posted by rolypolyman at 8:27 PM on July 6, 2006

why is it that the population of new orleans grew? i thought it was blown off the map last year.
posted by brandz at 8:41 PM on July 6, 2006

Sparx-

I don't have it handy, but the research "meme" I've seen passed around is linked to a study showing the crime rates among teens who do not have a father. It is a logical fallacy to equate "not having a father" as to being the same as "lesbian parents." (such as the study was done in the inner city, with single mothers, and I believe the statistics were gathered by profiling the backgrounds of teens with criminal records, not finding single mothers and asking them if their kids are in jail).

A few years back my college's conservative rag wrote a horrible editorial about how gay marriage would hurt america, because of all the crime, specifically caused by lesbian women raising their children without a father.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:50 AM on July 7, 2006

Protected from...? I see from Amberglow's link (thanks for that) that means "for example, it could be argued that children benefit from being raised by two natural parents, a mother and a father, rather than by gay or lesbian couples."

And yet adoption is legal too. Not to mention that adoptive parents really don't appreciate the stigma that they are somehow less of their child's parents, and that an adopted child suffers for it.

"Protected from...?" Realize that there just isn't a sensical, solid argument. It's an appeal to "common sense". It's an argument you'd come up with if you needed to invent something that sounded reasonable.

The problem is that, well, these reasonable arguments, like "children need a biological mother and father", are not applied to hetero couples. Why are we willing to overlook it? Because the arguments are knee-jerk reactions, not real reasons. If people really believed 2 "natural parents" were needed to protect children, then people would be against adoption. They aren't, so that makes this bigotry. Plain, and simple.
posted by adzuki at 5:24 AM on July 7, 2006

what adzuki said.

this will be overturned because of that someday (unfortunately many of us won't live to see it)
posted by amberglow at 6:54 AM on July 7, 2006

A much more detailed post from three blind mice.
posted by russilwvong at 12:17 PM on July 7, 2006