More Backlash Than Bliss 1 Year After Marriage Law

"I think it's a mistake," Kerry said. "I think it's the wrong thing."

That sentiment is shared by many in government, including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican.

"In Congress and in statehouses nationwide, it's rhetorical and legislative open season" on gays and lesbians, said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington. In large part he blames "the anti-gay industry, which has used the marriage issue as a way to ratchet up its really venomous rhetoric."

Foreman said same-sex marriage had provided his opponents "a wonderful organizing opportunity, because they are able to exploit so many people's lack of understanding about gay people, and their visceral feelings about the institution of marriage."

But Foreman said Massachusetts might be its own best advertisement for the harmlessness of same-sex marriage. In the last year, he noted, "nobody in the Legislature who supported gay marriage lost their jobs, and the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. And the crops came up, and the locusts stayed away."

But constitutional amendments restricting marriage to a union between one man and one woman passed overwhelmingly on ballots of all 13 states that took up such measures last year. Four state legislatures have approved similar amendments to their constitutions. California is one of 16 states where amendments banning same-sex marriage are pending.

A federal judge in Nebraska, however, struck down that state's ban on gay marriage last week, saying that a constitutional amendment approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2000 barred gays and lesbians from too many other rights, including adoption and foster parenting.

Courts in California, New York, New Mexico and Oregon nullified same-sex marriages that briefly had been permitted by municipalities. In states where marriage for gays and lesbians is under consideration, such as Maine, opponents of same-sex marriage have stepped up their efforts.

H.B. London Jr., vice president of ministry outreach/pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family, said he traveled from Colorado last month to demonstrate in Augusta because "Maine is right in that line of states with Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. They all have very liberal leadership, and I think that makes marriage vulnerable."

London added: "What happened in Massachusetts was a wake-up call to the rest of the United States that if you aren't vigilant, and if you don't stand firmly on what you believe morally and spiritually, traditional marriage is in jeopardy."