Even in Massachusetts, the legality of same-sex marriage is not guaranteed to stay that way.
State Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, a Democrat, said he would convene a constitutional convention Aug. 24 to consider an amendment that would bar same-sex marriage but legalize civil unions for gays and lesbians.
The bill won preliminary approval from the Legislature last year, but not in time to block the ruling by the state's highest court that allowed gay and lesbian couples to take out marriage licenses, beginning May 17, 2004. The court ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts advocacy group known as GLAD, for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.
If the bill barring same-sex marriage passes the full Legislature in the 2005-06 session, the amendment would still need the approval of voters on the November 2006 ballot.
Marty Rouse, campaign director for a group fighting to preserve same-sex marriage called MassEquality, said his organization was worried. "We currently do not have the votes to defeat this amendment," Rouse said. If the bill earns legislative approval, Rouse said, he could not predict what would happen in a general election: "We don't know what the people would do behind the curtain of a voting booth."
But Bob Meadow, a partner in the Washington polling firm Lake Snell Perry Mermin/Decision Research, said survey data from Massachusetts indicated strong support for allowing same-sex marriage. Meadow said a poll released May 4 found that 61% of voters approved of the Supreme Judicial Court's decision to extend marriage to gays and lesbians. The margin of error in the poll, commissioned by the MassEquality Education Fund, was plus or minus 4 percentage points, he said.
In addition, Meadow said, 84% of those questioned said legalizing same-sex marriage either had a positive effect or no effect on the quality of life in Massachusetts. Nearly the same percentage said same-sex marriages had no effect on traditional marriages.
According to GLAD, all the Massachusetts legislators who supported gay and lesbian marriage were returned to office in November. Two same-sex marriage opponents lost their legislative seats in 2004 primaries, and three supporters won special elections last month.
When neighboring Connecticut authorized civil unions for gays and lesbians last month, it became the first state to approve marriage-like rights for same-sex couples through its Legislature and not under court order. Vermont, which pioneered civil union in 2000, was ordered to create marriage-like status for gays and lesbians by its top court.
