January 20--Competing bills are now before the Massachusetts legislature as a result of the Vermont decision on marriage.

A Senate bill, which has the support of Republican Minority Leader Brian Lees and would also be supported by homosexual groups and opposed by those with traditional values, would extend existing spousal benefits to "domestic partners" for purposes of group insurance for employees of cities and towns. It would provide what amounts to full spousal benefits to unmarried or same gender partners. 

Another bill, in the House, would be favored by those with traditional values. It states that a purported marriage between persons of the same gender would not be valid in Massachusetts. 

The Senate bill, No. 1387, is sponsored by three Democrats, Diane Wilkerson, Susan Fargo and Christopher Hodgkins, in addition to Lees. It was filed on January 6th and seeks to amend existing statutes by inserting the words "or domestic partner" after "spouse" wherever the word spouse appears in chapter 32A and B of the state’s group insurance laws covering cities and towns. It is framed as a law aimed at providing "equal employment benefits for public sector employees." 

The Senate bill seeks to nullify an April 1999 SJC decision, Connors v. Boston, in which the state’s highest court limited such insurance benefits available under the state law to traditional "dependents," a group the court read as "wives and children." The Senate bill defines "domestic partner" as an employee "and his partner [who] reside in a common household and share financial responsibilities and expenses." It excludes those not yet eighteen-years-of-age, those who would be barred from traditional marriage because of blood relation, and those already married to someone else. It also excludes traditional family members caring for one another and/or a child, such as two elderly sisters, or a child caring for a grandparent. It requires only that those living in a "domestic partner" relationship affirm that they "intend to reside indefinitely as the other’s sole partner." 

The Governor is already on record as stating that such a broad grant of benefits to "unmarried" couples would weaken the traditional family structure and he would oppose the Bill. 

Public opinion polls on the subject have consistently shown that the vast majority of Americans do not favor same-gender marriages. A Wirthlin survey found 84 percent opposed, a 1996 Gallup Poll found 68 percent opposed. Indeed, in states such as Hawaii, and Alaska, when the issue went before voters, voters passed by substantial margins 69-29 and 68 to 32 percent, respectively, bans against domestic partner marriages. An interesting sidebar to the argument missed by many is this: while the debate has often centered on the issue of "marriages," a 1999 ACLU press release acknowledged that some 300 additional laws would likely change in Vermont when a domestic partner law is passed there. The same could likely be said in Massachusetts. Few know what those changes would encompass. 

Homosexuals Will Not Like House Bill 

Taking a different position from the Senate, Rep. Rogers of Norwood (D), filed a petition on behalf of himself, and Reps., Francis L. Marini (R) and Kevin Poirier (R), seeking to prohibit "same gender" marriages in Massachusetts. It has a definition of marriage as "a legal relationship between one man and one woman, who consent to take each other exclusively as husband and wife." 

It is quite possible, however, that as written, both the House and Senate bills could pass, without either affecting the other, since they do not conflict. Indeed, in state after state, advocates of reform have clearly shown a willingness to accept domestic partner designations that confer all the benefits of marriage. Ironically, marriage might be viewed under this approach as just another form of domestic partnership relationship instead of the other way around. In any form, and putting aside the more contentious cultural debate certain to follow, there will almost certainly be constitutional and statutory challenges before the courts. 
Last June, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court may have already signaled how it will handle the issue when it decided the case of E.N.O. vs. L.M.M. There, where a lesbian was fighting to have visitation rights to the child of her former partner, the SJC laid the framework for recognizing non-traditional families, when it gave legal standing to the rights of what it called de facto parents. "The recognition of de facto parents," wrote Justice Abrams for the court, "is in accord with notions of the modern family. An increasing number of same gender couples, like the plaintiff and the defendant, are deciding to have children . . . [t]hus, the best interest calculus must include an examination of the child’s relationship with both his legal and de facto parent." In a blistering opinion, the only dissenting judge, Justice Fried, wrote that the court had greatly expanded its own equity jurisdiction "with respect to the welfare of children" and by adopting a hitherto unrecognized principle of de facto parenthood as a sole basis for ordering visitation." 

The absence of debate at this early stage does not suggest apathy. In 1991 when the Boston City Council was considering such a proposal, the Archdiocese of Boston spoke to the issue through its newspaper the Pilot. Accepting such a law, wrote Msgr. William Murphy, "would place Boston on the ‘farthest shore of madness.’" Proponents of same gender laws are equally firm in their mission. "Re-defining family is at the forefront of the gay and lesbian agenda," says The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.