A week after the state's highest court chided them for not acting sooner, Massachusetts legislators relented Jan. 2 and OK'd a proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in the only state that currently allows it.
On the last day of their legislative session, 62 lawmakers voted in favor of advancing the amendment, while 134 ultimately voted against it. The procedural step only required 50 votes in the state's 200-member legislature to put the measure on the statewide ballot.
The legislators vote must be repeated in the upcoming 2007-08 session, with newly elected lawmakers, in order for the ban to appear on the 2008 statewide ballot.
Outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who is courting evangelicals and social conservatives as he mulls a 2008 presidential bid, opposes gay marriage. He was considered a supporter of gay rights and abortion rights prior to 2004, when the state's highest court approved same-sex marriage.
Romney filed papers to form a presidential “exploratory committee” Jan. 3.
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the change, saying the commonwealth's constitution requires that gay couples have the same right to marriage as heterosexual couples.
Gay-marriage opponents have been trying to get a state constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling ever since. They collected approximately 170,000 signatures in a petition drive to get the current amendment on the ballot. But reluctant lawmakers repeatedly adjourned special legislative sessions without voting on the proposal. Had they done so again before adjourning for the final time Jan. 2, the amendment could not have made it onto the ballot in 2008.
Opponents of same-sex marriage, including Gov. Romney, sued to force a vote on the amendment. The same court that ordered gay marriage said Dec. 27 that lawmakers' responsibility to vote on the amendment was “beyond serious debate” but that the court had no power to force them to do so.
“There is no presently articulated judicial remedy for the Legislature's indifference to, or defiance of, its constitutional duties,” the unanimous seven-member panel said.
Most Massachusetts gay-rights supporters have defended legislative leaders' decisions to adjourn without voting on the amendment, saying that civil-rights protections for minorities should not be left up to a popular vote. Conservative religious groups, meanwhile, have argued that voters and not the courts should determine if Massachusetts should have same-sex marriage.
Romney released a statement Jan. 2 calling the Legislature's successful vote on the amendment “a huge victory for the people of Massachusetts.”
But gay-rights advocates criticized the vote. Joe Solmonese, president of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, said the move “threatens to turn the nation's oldest constitution into an instrument of discrimination.”
He noted that the state's voters elected more lawmakers supportive of same-sex marriage in 2004—despite promises by gay-marriage opponents to target legislators who voted against similar amendments.
Democrat Deval Patrick, Massachusetts' newly-elected governor, is a supporter of gay marriage who lobbied legislators to vote against the amendment. He has promised to fight it in the next legislative session.
Recent polls have consistently found a majority of Massachusetts voters in favor of legal gay marriage. However, both opponents and supporters of the practice anticipate a hard-fought battle over the amendment, should it make its way onto the 2008 ballot. It is likely to attract money and attention from across the country as a sort of national proxy referendum on gay marriage.
One Massachusetts gay-rights activist told the Boston Globe that the fight over an amendment—even if her side won—would be needlessly expensive and divisive for the commonwealth. “It would be one of the most nasty and divisive battles the state has ever seen, viciously antigay,” said Arline Isaacson of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. “We will do everything in our power to stop that from happening.”
Voters in 26 states have passed state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, most in the past six years. Only one state—Arizona—has seen its voters reject a similar amendment.