Some see conflict for Romney on gay marriage
Ceremonial licensing belies his opposition
For 17 years, Massachusetts couples have asked friends, family, and loved ones to solemnize their marriages under an obscure state law allowing the governor to grant one-day certificates to officiate a wedding.
Since same-sex marriage became legal in May 2004, Governor Mitt Romney has approved scores of such requests from gay and lesbian couples, creating a ticklish political situation for the staunch gay-marriage opponent as he gears up for a possible presidential bid in 2008. Romney approved at least 189 requests from same-sex couples in 2005, along with about 1,040 applications for heterosexual couples.
The one-day certificates, which cost $25, allow virtually anyone to legally solemnize a marriage anywhere in the Commonwealth. The approvals are largely rubber-stamp decisions that governors routinely make, but Romney, who took office in 2003, is the first governor to face requests from gay couples.
Some gay-marriage supporters in Massachusetts credit Romney for putting the law above his own beliefs, but some conservative activists in Iowa and South Carolina say they are uneasy that he has essentially sanctioned same-sex weddings. They say he will have to explain himself if he decides to run for president.
''I think it will be difficult for him, because in my opinion it looks like he's doing just the opposite from what he believes," Joan Wheeler, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Cherokee County, S.C., said when asked whether voters there will care about the issue. ''If he signs off on it, he does choose to do it, in my opinion."
Even though Wheeler's view is not universal -- others in the party say Romney will have no trouble justifying the approvals -- it illustrates the tough questions facing the governor as he pivots from the Bay State's generally liberal political climate to the sharp-elbowed world of presidential politics, where everything a candidate has done is brought into sharp relief by primary opponents, their strategists, and their slick campaign ads.
''I don't know if it would be an obstacle for him, but I do think he will be asked about it," Susan Frazer, chairwoman of the Republican Party in Scott County, Iowa, said when told about how Romney regularly grants the requests from gay and lesbian couples, just as he does with heterosexual couples.
Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, said that even though the governor opposes gay marriage, it would be discriminatory and illegal for him to apply the law regarding the one-day certificates differently to same-sex couples.
''Governor Romney has fought against the court's gay marriage ruling from day one and is continuing to fight for the right of voters in Massachusetts to cast a vote to overturn the gay marriage decision," Fehrnstrom said in an e-mail statement. ''Until that day comes, Governor Romney is bound by his oath of office to execute the laws of the Commonwealth."
Fehrnstrom said the governor's office can deny an application only if an applicant is deemed to lack ''a high standard of character." Since Romney took office, the administration has turned down just one request, which came from someone involved in a criminal matter, Fehrnstrom said; more details were not available last week, he said.
Fehrnstrom added that Romney's staff, not the governor himself, routinely handles and approves the applications. He declined to speculate on whether the issue would surface in a national campaign.
In the weeks before same-sex marriage become legal in May 2004, some who wanted to officiate gay weddings complained that the Romney administration was suddenly delaying decisions on the one-day certificates, prompting suspicion that the governor was trying to find a way to reject their requests.
Daniel Winslow, Romney's top legal adviser at the time, said in an interview last week that attorney-client privilege prevented him from commenting on whether the administration discussed internally the one-day licenses as they pertained to gay marriage. But as a general principle, he said, the governor cannot legally apply a statute selectively.
''If you do them, you gotta do them," Winslow said. ''It's got to be applied evenly across the board."
The Romney administration applied the same logic when it instructed justices of the peace in 2004 that the law required them to officiate at same-sex weddings, even if they opposed gay marriage. Justices of the peace who didn't want to perform such marriages were told to resign.
For months, Romney has been appealing to conservatives in out-of-state speeches, in which he often attacks the Supreme Judicial Court's 4 to 3 decision in November 2003 that sanctioned gay marriage. His harsh criticism of what he calls ''judicial over-reaching" always wins applause from Republican audiences.
But the governor has at times taken pains to promote tolerance of gays and lesbians. When an administration official was dismissed and asserted that the action was related to her intention to marry her lesbian partner, Romney strongly denied it and noted that several high-ranking officials in his administration were gay.
And in a November speech to the conservative Federalist Society in Washington DC, Romney decried the SJC decision, but also said, ''We should be open and tolerant of different lifestyles."
The applications Romney approved from same-sex couples included at least four from state legislators, including Jarrett T. Barrios, a state senator from Cambridge, members of the clergy from out-of-state, family members, and friends.
One of the applications he approved came from state Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat who officiated at the wedding of two constituents in June 2004. Rosenberg said that he ''appreciated the fact that [Romney] didn't let his personal feelings stand in the way of people being able to get those one-day licenses."
''I just filed the application and was pleased when it was very quickly approved," Rosenberg recalled. ''There was no delay, there was no difficulty at all."
Another applicant, John M. Iredale , expressed joy over the wedding last August of a longtime friend and his partner, which Iredale officiated.
''People need to be happy. It's 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"' Iredale said in an interview. ''Good luck to them. They're just wonderful people."
Romney's approval of solemnization requests for such same-sex couples could make for trouble as he tries to gain a toehold in primary states where conservative voters hold great sway.
''In Iowa, I don't care who you are, you do something like that you're going to have to explain yourself," Leon Mosley, co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said when asked how the issue might play in his state. ''Knowing my state, it's a red state now, it's a conservative state. We've got things that we just grew up with and believe in ... I don't care if I'm governor or not, I don't rubber stamp anything I don't believe in."
But Ed Foulke, GOP chairman in Greenville County, SC, said the issue is so technical that he has a hard time seeing it hurting Romney, who he said is well thought of there.
''I think his position on gay marriage is pretty clear down here," Foulke said.
''Frankly, to stop gay marriage, that's not the way to do that," added Tim Miller, chairman of the Republican Party in Lexington County, SC. ''People will have to stretch things against him to find something wrong."
Several Republican party officials agreed, however, that a rival campaign is apt to bring it up.
''I don't think that's something that the average primary voter would think of," said Jay Ragley, political director of the South Carolina Republican Party. But, he said, ''I can see somebody doing something with it."
Globe correspondent Chase Davis contributed to this report. Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com. 