Gay marriage foes take their fight local
Aim is to grow at grass-roots
Two years after its fight failed to bring a gay marriage ban to the Massachusetts ballot, the organization that spearheaded the effort by collecting 123,356 petition signatures is focusing on more local political endeavors, offering support to candidates for selectmen and school committee in a number of communities.
Leaders of the Coalition for Marriage and Family, an outgrowth of VoteOnMarriage.org, hope the change will build a strong grass-roots momentum. The shift to local campaigns has left candidates to ponder the connection between trash fees and transgender rights, with some seeing the relevance and others remaining skeptical.
Alan Vervaeke, who lost a bid for the Danvers School Committee earlier this month, received the coalition's outreach letter and 12-question survey that focused mostly on hot-button moral issues like gay rights and abortion.
"I think that those particular questions have nothing to do with the governing of a municipality or school," said Vervaeke. "Are people basing my ability to serve in a municipal position if I have a gay or lesbian friend in a civil union and I support them? . . . It just has nothing to do with what a school committee does. It has nothing to do with what a selectman does."
Lisa Barstow, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said the grass-roots effort is a natural evolution from the VoteOnMarriage.org state effort. "There was a lot of organic grass-roots interest in the marriage issue, and once the issue had been put to rest, the notion was, 'Where do we go from here? Where do these folks go who are all fired up?,' " she said.
Barstow does not think that issues like family values and gay marriage are out of place on the local level.
"I think there's different ways that we can gauge our success. We're here and we're growing and we're educating people," she said. "We're trying to get neighbors to talk to neighbors. . . . Some of the most fruitful conversations happen at the local Shaw's."
The coalition has been targeting communities across the state, and has offered support to candidates in Danvers, Andover, Winchester, and Burlington, among other towns.
The coalition's survey includes a cover letter offering financial support, volunteers, and advice for candidates who share the coalition's "pro-family legislative agenda" including "support for traditional marriage, the sanctity of life, and common sense government." Among the questions is, "Do you believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death (are you pro-life)?"
VoteOnMarriage.org was the official sponsoring organization for the Massachusetts Protection of Marriage Amendment, which would have rescinded rights for gay people to marry if voters approved the constitutional amendment. But the issue never made it to the 2008 ballot because it died in the 2007 Constitutional Convention at the hands of state legislators.
Barstow sees the group's recent focus on local politics as an effort to attract candidates and spur activism.
"We do have a concern about recruiting candidates and electing candidates that reflect the views of the members," she said.
Ann Gilbert, who won a seat on Andover's School Committee in March, is not one of those people.
"It's personally a vision that I completely disagree with, and I would be stunned if somebody in a local election would accept money from an organization with a particular political bent," she said. But she also said she sees the value in the coalition's tactics, since even small contributions of money and volunteering - be it postage for mailings or extra hands for holding signs - can make or break a candidate. "That's how these local elections are won," she said.
Last year, the Massachusetts Independent PAC for Working Families, a political action committee that works closely with the coalition to support candidates, according to the coalition's solicitation letter, gave out $37,402 in cash and in-kind contributions to 38 Democratic and Republican candidates running for state seats, according to the state's Office of Campaign and Political Finance. No candidates for local office received contributions.
The PAC has paid the Coalition for Marriage and Family's executive director, Chanel Prunier, $6,000 in stipends since 2006.
This year's candidate financing disclosures haven't been released, and Barstow wouldn't give details about the coalition's candidate support. She chose instead to outline the coalition's objectives, the most recent of which is the group's opposition to a state bill that would expand discrimination and hate crime laws to protect transgender people. One of the bill's features would allow transgender people to use bathrooms of the gender they identify with.
Whether Massachusetts is ready for issues like these to play out locally remains to be seen.
"My sense is that some of the more conservative organizations have not had a great response in Massachusetts," said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. "I think districts have been broadening rather than narrowing as far as a family definition."
And Massachusetts Municipal Association spokeswoman Patricia Mikes said she's never heard of an organization centered on anything "other than municipal business" reach out to selectmen.
There's at least one candidate who does see the relevance. Kevin McKelvey lost his bid to return to Burlington's Board of Selectmen in early April.
"I was happy to have received [the letter] and I applaud any group for getting involved and soliciting info," he said. "It's so important that we choose a candidate that supports our beliefs."
Megan McKee can be reached at megan.mckee@gmail.com. 