Gay marriage foes push referendum

A new coalition of conservative political and religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage said yesterday that it hopes to tilt the scales in its favor by arguing that Bay State voters should be allowed to settle the divisive issue, not the Supreme Judicial Court.

The group, called the Coalition for Marriage, staged a rally in the State House yesterday, promising to advertise on television and radio, knock on doors, and stage public meetings to generate outrage among Massachusetts voters that they have been denied a chance to weigh in on the gay marriage issue.

The goal, they said, is to persuade lawmakers to vote in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage at a constitutional convention Feb. 11. If a majority of lawmakers approves the amendment, it would be the first step toward getting the proposal on the ballot in 2006. Gay marriage opponents say they feel confident they could win at the ballot box.

"Unelected judges have usurped the power of the Legislature in the case of marriage," the coalition's spokesman, Ronald A. Crews, told a cheering crowd of more than 200, many of whom shouted "hallelujah" and "amen" in response. "Let the people vote on the definition of marriage."

Yesterday's event was the latest development in an increasingly heated lobbying effort following the November SJC ruling that declared same-sex marriage constitutional in Massachusetts. Today, a group of gay marriage supporters plans to hold a rally at the State House to support the ruling and argue against the proposed constitutional amendment that would declare marriage the union of a man and a woman.

The coalition announced yesterday includes several groups that are veterans of the antiabortion movement, and numbers two dozen groups from across the state and country. The groups include the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state's four Catholic dioceses, and Concerned Women For America, a national Christian advocacy group that says it promotes "biblical values among all citizens."

The new coalition is setting up a toll-free information phone line and is buying office space in Newton, Crews said. It will also open a political action committee to make campaign contributions to lawmakers who support the fight to overturn the court's ruling.

On Nov. 18, the SJC ruled that it is unconstitutional to deprive same-sex couples of the rights and privileges that heterosexual married couples enjoy.

Crews declined to disclose how much the coalition would spend to achieve its goals, but said, "We will do what we have to do."

Underscoring his group's new strategy, Crews released the findings of a statewide poll, conducted last month by Zogby International, showing that 69 percent of the likely voters questioned agreed that "voters should have an opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment" to define marriage as a heterosexual union. The poll of 601 likely voters had a margin of error of 4.1 percent, Crews said.

The group declined to release the full survey results, but provided wording of seven poll questions and the responses to those questions.

The poll also found that 50 percent of those questioned said they felt the SJC had "overstepped its bounds" and that 64 percent said they would support a constitutional amendment "to require that judges be reelected by the voters."

"The key findings of this poll demonstrate that the position of the Coalition for Marriage, in its affirmation of traditional marriage, as it's always been defined, the union of one man and one woman, [is] consistent with the views of Massachusetts voters," Crews said.

Next month's constitutional convention is scheduled to consider a proposed amendment, filed by Republican state Senator Michael R. Knapik, that would require judges to run for reelection every six years.

Currently, high court justices are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Governor's Council. Six of the seven justices on the SJC were appointed by Republican governors, who have held the Corner Office since 1991. Democratic House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran has voiced support for judicial elections, after the Clean Elections fight of 2002.

Until now, critics of same-sex marriage have mostly expressed anger and disgust that the court altered an institution that, as they put it, has remained unchanged for thousands of years.

Polls taken before and after the SJC's ruling indicate that between 42 to 59 percent of Massachusetts voters favor gay marriage, with most polls showing about half the electorate favoring the idea.

With those results in mind, opponents are now putting a much greater emphasis on the concept that voters have been routinely left out of the debate. They point to 2002, when the Legislature adjourned without taking up a so-called Defense of Marriage Act measure, and last fall, when the SJC ruled that denying same-sex couples marriage licenses was unconstitutional.

"This vote is not my call," Representative Philip Travis, the chief sponsor of the proposed amendment to ban gay marriage, told the State House crowd yesterday. "It is the people's call."

Those who support the SJC ruling say the coalition's strategy of appealing to democratic impulses is an veiled attempt to conceal contempt for the rights of homosexual couples and of the nation's tradition of equal rights for all.

"They are dressing up their bigotry with arguments about democracy, and they pretend that the courts should not have made this decision, but they would not have objected to the court making the decision if the court had decided their way," said Arline Isaacson, a member of the executive committee of MassEquality, a coaltion of gay rights groups that also was formed recently. "It is fundamentally un-American for the tyranny of the majority to determine the rights of any minority. That's what this country was raised on. You don't have popularity contests about who is equal under the law."

Isaacson said the idea of judges running for election is being proposed only because the SJC did not agree with gay marriage opponents. She argued it would be foolish to press forward with judicial elections because of one ruling.

"They keep saying it's the people that should speak," she said, "because they know being egregiously antigay in this state doesn't play, so they have to hide their homophobia with ideas like this."

The Zogby poll found that 52 percent of those questioned agreed that marriage should only be between one man and one woman and that 42 percent did not agree. That finding was virtually the opposite of two recent Globe/WBZ-TV polls, as well as a poll conducted by the Boston Herald.

A gay rights group conducted a poll shortly before the court's ruling that found 59 percent of respondents in favor of gay marriage.