Jackson opposes gay marriage ban

The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who has stopped short of endorsing gay marriage in the past, yesterday said he opposed a proposed state constitutional amendment that would outlaw gay marriage and create civil unions.

"We must measure human rights by one yardstick: Marry who you want to. And leave when you're ready," he said at a meeting with Globe reporters and editors.

Still, Jackson chafed at the idea -- championed by some legislators and gay rights advocates -- that the gay marriage fight is analogous to African-Americans' struggle for civil rights.

Only blacks have had to contend with the legacy of slavery, Jackson said, adding that "some of the slavemasters were gay."

"The gay civil rights issue is real," he said, but the analogy "is a stretch. It is diminishing of slavery to have that comparison."

Some local black ministers have made the same argument, although others -- as well as some black legislators -- have said they support gay marriage precisely because they link it to blacks' struggle for civil rights.

Jackson, the onetime presidential candidate who heads the Rainbow/Push Coalition, will speak at Harvard University today to drum up support for a proposed US constitutional amendment he said would protect voting rights on the federal level, instead of leaving that authority to the states. The amendment was introduced in the House of Representatives last month by Jackson's son, Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democratic congressman from Illinois.

The elder Jackson said the amendment was inspired by the legal battle over Florida's electoral votes in the 2000 presidential election, which he thinks was caused, in part, by states' extensive jurisdiction over electoral matters.

The amendment would allow voter registration on the same day as elections, he said, and eliminate laws that bar convicted felons from voting, which he called "a disenfranchisement scheme." He said he hoped the amendment also would prompt legislators to reconsider the electoral college system.

Jackson also appeared earlier yesterday at the Grove Hall Community Center, standing alongside members of the New England Million Mom March. Both there and at the Globe, Jackson urged Congress to extend a ban on assault weapons, set to expire this year.

He tied the assault weapons ban to national security concerns, saying terrorists on American soil would be impossible to stop if they possessed such firepower.

"There's no bigger contradiction than to have a multibillion-dollar homeland security bill, and put Uzis and AK-47s back on the street," Jackson said.

Jackson said he also plans a "crusade across Appalachia" to drum up opposition to President Bush among the poor. He said he will urge presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry to press for greater federal infrastructure spending in the region, and to consider subsidies to the energy and steel industries, in the name of national security.

Globe correspondent Matthew Rodriguez contributed to this report.