A legislative task force's effort to draft a compromise gay-rights bill including civil unions provoked a mixed reaction yesterday from activists on both sides of the issue, several of whom voiced concern about the secrecy of the proceedings and skepticism about the outcome.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman John H. Rogers, long viewed as a foe of gay rights, said Friday that he will lead a renewed effort to draft legislation outlawing gay marriage, but allowing civil unions like those made legal in Vermont. Adding urgency to their work, House Democrats on the task force -- who first attempted a compromise in unsuccessful secret meetings last year -- hope to bring the proposal to a vote in the Legislature before the Supreme Judicial Court issues its ruling on whether to legalize gay marriage.

The private nature of the group's discussions alarmed both advocates and opponents of gay marriage.

"I'm concerned on a couple of levels, and one is political meetings in back rooms to carve out public policy that needs to be debated in public," said Ronald Crews, an opponent of gay marriage and the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

His concern was shared by a political opponent, Valerie Fein-Zachary, chairwoman of the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts. "In America, you don't negotiate people's civil rights in secret meetings behind closed doors," she said. "You have public hearings."

The compromise worked out by the task force in months of secret meetings last year would have barred gay couples from marrying and granted them 13 new rights, compared with 350 rights offered in Vermont. Gay rights groups rejected it in July 2002, and the task force stopped meeting. The group will begin meeting again later this month in an atmosphere of heightened visibility for gay rights concerns. In addition to the awaited court ruling, there are four bills before lawmakers that propose gay marriage or civil unions.

Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said she was fully aware of the task force's work last year, and added that she is heartened that Rogers and fellow conservative Democrat Eugene O'Flaherty have come out in favor of civil unions.

"Our hopes are that people of good will like O'Flaherty and Rogers will stretch themselves even further than last year and agree to granting us equality, even if that leaves them personally, religiously, psychologically somewhat uncomfortable," Isaacson said.

But proponents of gay marriage stressed that civil unions are not the same thing, offering roughly one-quarter of the 1,400-plus legal rights conferred by civil marriage and limiting those rights to the state where the union takes place. "Marriage is just so much more than civil unions are," said Mary Bonauto, a lawyer for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston. "It's bread-and-butter protections for people, and it's hard to recommend that they bargain those away."

Crews said he has concerns about civil unions, as well, such as the cost to the state if a large new group of residents becomes eligible for benefits under the legislation. He said he will continue pushing for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a right restricted to heterosexual couples.

Sarah McVay Pawlick, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage and a gay marriage opponent, said the court's delay suggests that it will not support the rights of gays to marry. With that possibility growing, she said, it is expected that the "the proponents of marriage will be trying to get something while they can."

Globe staff reporter Raphael Lewis contributed to this report.

Statement by Sarah McVay Pawlick, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage to Boston Globe
November 1, 2003

Those in favor of gay marriage are feeling desperate. They know that the continued delay by Chief Justice Margaret Marshall in releasing the SJC opinion in the gay marriage lawsuit makes it appear as though she is having trouble getting the other six judges to be on the side of gay marriage.

In addition, we at MCM have been notified by the SJC that there will be a delay in their decision on our suit which would send the Protection of Marriage Amendment (which was not voted on by the Legislature last year) to this Legislature for a vote. It is highly unusual for such a delay and many wonder the reason for it. The failure to vote on that Amendment last year was in violation of the Massachusetts Constitution, according to the SJC in its December 20, 2002 opinion, which was misreported by the Globe on December 21 and never corrected.

In the light of all that, it is expected that the proponents of marriage will be trying to get something while they can and before Justice Marshall is forced to reveal the court's opinions.

This is just another attempt at fooling the voters into believing they have lost their battle to continue traditional marriage as the cornerstone of our society.

It's no wonder they are still working in secret on Beacon Hill.

Domestic Partnerships

In addition, the New York Times, which is the owner of the Boston Globe, has editorialized that domestic partnerships are a "crucial step forward" to gay marriage:
"[T]hough imperfect, [it] is a crucial step forward. It sensibly promotes the security and stability of gay families. In time, Vermont's example will show the rest of the country that same-sex unions are not a threat to traditional marriage and deserve the name of marriage as well as the law's full protection."

The Washington Post has gone even further, saying that we must have "gay marriage" because domestic partnerships make homosexuals into second-class citizens:
"[M]any advocates will say that endorsing 'civil unions' but not marriage codifies gays' second-class status. We are still in the early stages of a long debate, as society gradually comes to terms with an open acceptance of gays, and history may judge Thursday's vote in the Vermont House to have been a relatively small step. But it will be judged, we think, to have been a healthy one."

Polls

We don't know what polls the Globe referred to in today's paper which said that the citizens favor gay marriage. If they believe that to be true, why do they work so hard to stop the people from voting on the Amendment?

The only such poll we know about is the one that the Globe put on its front page this April which the Ombudsman said was "problematical." But they would not correct it. The one question was included in fifty others on a broad range of topics.

The question was whether gay marriage should be "legally sanctioned." The word "sanctioned" can mean either approved or disapproved.

Even I wouldn't have known how to answer that question.