To the editor: Where will same-sex marriage go? Forty-five states have laws that ban same-sex marriage. Recent Supreme Court decisions in New York, Georgia and Connecticut have upheld traditional marriage, and now Washington State has joined them.

Twenty out of 20 times the issue has come before voters in the United States and Americans have chosen to protect by constitutional amend ment the idea of limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

This November, at least six other states will have the opportunity to do the same, and two more may yet join them, making eight.

The most recent Washington state decision said that there is no `` histo ry and tradition of same-sex mar riage in this nation'85.'' and that `` It cannot be overemphasized that '85 the people, who have consented to be governed, speak through their elect ed representatives.''

Why can't we? The recent Consti tutional Convention was recessed before the issue of the same-sex ban came up, in violation of our state's constitution that the legislature do the people's business, and that after 170,000 voters signed petitions to address their concern. The issue is no longer same-sex marriage. When the legislative lead ers thwart the will of the people, the issue then becomes the state consti tution itself, and the rights of all cit izens.

Attorney Gregory P. Lee of North Attleboro recently excoriated state representatives Betty Poirier, R North Attleboro, and John Lepper, R-Attleboro letter of July 18 as hypocrites for wanting to let the peo ple vote, even citing the writer of our constitution, John Adams. He was mistaken. Our state bill of rights, written by Adams, explicitly states that all power resides with and origi nates in the people, and that the peo ple have the right to reform or alter our government. Adams also wrote that those in office who would tyran nically repress our rights should be turned back to private life.

One hundred cowards in the legis lature violated your rights as citi zens of our commonwealth, on the pretense of postponing their efforts, until after the election. Adams must be turning in his grave, not at what the legislature did, but at what we, the people, are not doing to right their wrong.

Harold F. Crowell, North Attleboro