The moment on marriage

THE ISSUE of gay marriage returns to Beacon Hill this week, for what could be the final legislative showdown.

We've watched this debate for 3 1/2 years, from the days when opponents clearly had the upper hand, to today, when the momentum is just as clearly with those who favor letting gays and lesbians wed.

Now, with House Speaker Sal DiMasi, Governor Deval Patrick, and Senate President Therese Murray all working to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opponents are said to be close to denying it the 50 votes (of the 200 in both chambers) it needs to make the November 2008 ballot.

Let's be clear: If the amendment is beaten that way, its opponents can hold their heads high.

For all the demands to "let the people vote," there is no constitutional obligation to send this to the ballot.

I say that as someone who has written both that Tom Reilly, then attorney general, was correct in certifying the proposed amendment, thereby letting it move forward, and that the Legislature would be wrong to resort to parliamentary tactics to kill it rather than giving it an up-or-down vote.

The process should be protected. But that said, the process is the process -- and that's why it's nonsense to argue that legislators somehow have an obligation to let the people decide.

They do not. When it comes to proposed amendments, the state constitution gives lawmakers a clear gate-keeping function. That means they should make up their own minds on the merits and vote accordingly.

If, after all this debate, legislators conclude that the anti-gay-marriage amendment is a bad idea and thus keep it from winning 50 votes, they will have dealt it a completely legitimate defeat.

That's also why a representative or senator who says he personally opposes the amendment, but will vote for it so the people can resolve the matter at the ballot, is assuming a low profile in courage, one that shirks his constitutional duty to exercise his own judgment.

One pivotal figure could be House Speaker Pro Tempore Thomas Petrolati , who supported the amendment last time around. As a top figure in the House -- someone whose leadership post was created for him by DiMasi -- Petrolati could influence a number of moderate to conservative lawmakers. Certainly the fact that he hasn't switched has made it harder for gay-marriage supporters to persuade other legislators to reconsider.

So the time has come for Petrolati, who holds a safe Ludlow-based seat, to live up to the leadership role he's been given. All eyes are on you, Tom.

Of the many demonstrators that I've talked to over the course of this long debate, some of those who impressed me the most were family members who came to the State House to stand up for fairness for gay relatives. Back in 2004, Nancy Cherico of Weymouth caught my eye with a puckish placard that read: "If gay and lesbian people are allowed to have equal rights, then everyone will want them."

"My son is gay. I would like him to have equal rights," Cherico said, simply and eloquently.

Who wouldn't want that for their family members, their friends?

But the sentiments that come back to me most often came from Cathryn Blackwell of Jamaica Plain, who was standing outside the State House on a rainy day last year to show her support for gay marriage. She had been to any number of weddings for heterosexual friends and relatives, Blackwell, then 35, said, but she had never imagined that she herself would be able to marry. Then the Supreme Judicial Court ruled and, the year before last, she and her partner did.

"We had a wedding, and my brother and my parents and everybody came," she said. "Nothing has done more to validate my feeling as being part of this world." They have bought a home and got a couple of dogs.

"It is all very routine -- and I'm very grateful for it," she told me. "I know why I am out in the rain."

I know why I am out in the rain.

I think of Blackwell's comments, and of broader hopes for future fairness, for continued inclusion, whenever I think about this issue.

On Thursday, I hope legislators still uncertain about what to do will think of those things, too.

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