Do All Boston Lawyers Oppose 'Protection of Marriage Act?'

President of Boston Bar Shades the Truth  

Feminist Boston Bar President Gives False Information About Marriage Act

July 2001

Is it true that all lawyers in Boston oppose the Protection of Marriage Act?

If you listened to the President of the Boston Bar Association, Joan Lukey, when she addressed the legislature, you would think so.

But the decision to oppose the Act was decided by a 19-member Council, not by the 9,000-members of the organization.

Pres. Lukey didn't tell the legislature that she wrote to her members before her testimony that her job is "most difficult when the Association is confronted with issues on which our membership cannot reach consensus."

In other words, the Boston Bar Association is deeply divided.

Many of the members wonder why the President of their Bar Association would even want to touch an issue that is social and not legal in nature. Don't they have enough problems with the Massachusetts courts to worry about? Have they solved all of those problems?

"That situation [about a divided Bar Association] is exacerbated," she wrote to the members, "when the issues involve passionately held views on opposite sides of the proverbial fence, so that feelings run high and are susceptible of being bruised, regardless of the direction in which the Association's leadership chooses to move. Among the key functions of the President is consensus building, and, when that is not possible, achieving compromise that is as compatible as possible with the views of the membership, while recognizing that compromise is roughly analogous to a tie game in a sports context."

She continued, "In this environment, the Council, in a dignified and respectful fashion, with opposing views articulately stated, confronted the issue of whether to oppose House Bill 3375." She reports that they "never lost the tone of civility." (Well, that's good to know.) They decided they would "compromise" by opposing the Bill but taking no stand on "same-sex marriage" for now.

Pres. Lukey is going to have to go to Pennsylvania and get a Philadelphia lawyer to explain to her members how that was a "compromise."