Optimism on same-sex amendment

WHAT A DIFFERENCE a roll-call vote can make.

Since the Legislature advanced an anti-gay-marriage amendment last month, pro-gay marriage legislators have grown increasingly convinced that with hard work, they can beat the measure on the merits.

Certainly supporters of same-sex marriage have reason to be optimistic. By their estimates, they need to switch only seven to nine votes to deny the amendment the 50 it needs to advance to the statewide ballot.

In the Senate alone, there's potential for substantial progress. Senate President Robert Travaglini voted yes last time, and is said to think that the only way the gay marriage issue will ever really be fully resolved is with a public vote. Still, close friends expect he would switch on a second vote. Should he leave the Senate before then, the effect, at least temporarily, would be to reduce the pro amendment tally by one.

Republican Senator Bob Hedlund of Weymouth, a lawmaker with libertarian leanings, also voted for the amendment last time, but says he is torn between conflicting arguments and has been rethinking the issue.

"There are a lot of legislators who are agonizing about it," says Hedlund, who notes he recently spent several hours discussing the matter with a gay voter.

Then there's Senator Michael Morrissey , a Quincy Democrat who voted for the amendment, but tells me that if it makes the ballot, he will vote against the ban. So why his pro amendment vote? Simple: Morrissey thinks his constituents want a public vote. Still, I'd put the eight-term Democrat in the category of persuadable.

And certainly if Brian Lees , the former Senate Republican leader, could vote against the amendment, it's hard to think that Gale Candaras , the liberal Wilbraham Democrat who took his place, couldn't safely switch her yes vote for the amendment. Indeed, some think she could face a district revolt if she doesn't.

There's obviously far greater potential in the larger House, where Speaker Sal DiMasi strongly favors gay marriage.

"Sal has never made a big effort to kill this amendment," says one lawmaker. "Now it is obvious he can."

Here's one widely whispered State House question: What about Petro? That would be Representative Thomas Petrolati of Ludlow, for whom DiMasi created a special leadership position, Speaker pro tempore of the House. Yes, his district is conservative, but Petro is a patronage potentate who holds Ludlow in a legislative liege's iron grip -- and if ever anyone owed DiMasi, he does.

Mind you, Petro is simply the most obvious target. More than a dozen members of DiMasi's newly announced leadership team voted for the anti-marriage amendment last time.

"If he got just his own top guys to switch, it's over," notes another lawmaker.

For his part, DiMasi is optimistic.

"I believe we can persuade the members on the merits," he says.

The point is, a legitimate victory now appears well within reach. But the effort would benefit from a little more political sophistication and flexibility on the part of same-sex marriage activists.

First, they need to tamp down the rhetoric -- and ramp up the persuasion.

Not everyone who has doubts about gay marriage is hateful or mean-spirited or homophobic -- and hyperbolic rhetoric isn't likely to persuade a wavering opponent of same-sex marriage to reconsider his vote.

Second, they need to acknowledge legitimate process concerns. Participants say a strategy meeting late last year grew tense when, in the face of a Supreme Judicial Court declaration that the amendment deserved a vote on the merits, gay advocates insisted legislators use parliamentary tactics to kill it, warning that they would no longer be considered friends if they refused.

Finally, advocates have been insisting on being assured of a substantial margin -- as many as 10 votes, in some tellings -- before the anti marriage amendment is brought to a vote.

That's simply unrealistic. Certainly it would be good to have a couple extra votes so that no individual legislator can be accused of being the decisive vote that killed the amendment.

Byron Rushing, the second assistant majority leader, notes that he'd like a comfortable margin, but adds: "If we win this, it is a landslide no matter what vote we get. It means that three-quarters of the Legislature will have voted to keep the amendment out of the constitution."

Rushing is right there. Play by the rules, and a win is a win -- and a completely legitimate victory, no matter how close the tally.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.