Fresh off their successes beating back the gay menace in Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, and California, the Marriage Protection Racket™ is seeking other pastures for their special brand of hate. And why not look to where heterosexual marriage is particularly imperiled, the home of Plymouth Rock?

“We’re much encouraged by the results in California, and there’s no doubt in our minds, had we been on the ballot Tuesday, our measure would have won,” said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes gay marriage.

Whether the group will launch a signature drive next year, Mineau said, remains to be seen.

Still unclear on the concept of Majority Rule and Minority Rights, the bigots are looking to the ballot box to promote their hate:

If the group does decide to start a petition drive next year, Mineau said, “. . . we will have assistance from around the country because Massachusetts and Connecticut remain ground zero in the battle for the definition of marriage. They’re the only states that have same-sex marriages by court decree. Neither state has allowed citizens to vote on the definition of marriage.”

Massachusetts is smarter about constitutional amendments than California, though; that offers reasonable and fair-minded people hope.

Gay-marriage proponents, however, said they were unconcerned by Tuesday’s results in California – which had begun allowing gay marriages six months ago at the court’s decree – precisely because it is harder to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Massachusetts.

“The other side has tried everything they can without success, and I don’t really think this can strengthen the local movement,” said Carisa Cunningham of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.

Marc Solomon, executive director of the gay-rights group MassEquality, said he also was “not at all concerned, although I’m vigilant.”

“Voters in Massachusetts support legislators who support marriage equality,” Solomon said, “and our opponents are fighting an ever increasingly losing battle.”

That probably won’t stop the Eldernauts of the Moroni LDS, the Family Research Circus’s Tony Perkins, Focus on Your Own Damn Family’s James & Shirley Dobson, and Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Store & Church™ from raising millions of dollars from their [marks] gullible parishioners. Get ready, Mormons & Fundies! — it’s once more time to ask Mr Banker for a second mortgage on your lovely depreciating home in order to stop The Evil Gay Marriages.

Don’t these people have canned-good drives or warm-winter-coat barrels to spend their dollars on? Must their money always be directed at undermining someone else’s civil rights?