Gay Marriage Opponents Begin New Ballot Push
State House News Service
       Gay marriage opponents began a new ballot drive Tuesday, delivering a proposed constitutional amendment to the attorney general’s office that they hope to place on the 2008 statewide ballot.

 “The language was submitted as well as the first signatories,” said Lisa Barstow, spokesperson for the Coalition for Marriage and Families. Raymond Flynn, the former mayor of Boston and former US ambassador to the Vatican, was among the first 10 signers of the initiative petition. VoteOnMarriage.org, a ballot question committee that formed in June, will now seek to gather signatures from 65,825 residents and the support of 25 percent of the Legislature in two successive legislative sessions.
       An amendment banning gay marriage and authorizing same-sex civil unions was advanced by the Legislature last year and needs a majority vote of approval during this two-year session to reach the 2006 statewide ballot. A vote on that amendment may come as soon as this fall.
       Following a Supreme Judicial Court ruling in 2003, Massachusetts in May 2004 became the first state to legalize gay marriage.
       “I have always supported the citizens’ right to be heard on important public policy issues,” Flynn said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that unelected judges and politicians have disregarded the will of the people.” A similar citizen-driven amendment banning gay marriage died in July 2002 when then Senate President Thomas Birmingham, who had called the amendment “wrong-hearted and wrongheaded,” gaveled the Constitutional Convention to a close without taking a vote on the proposal.