Kerry aims to keep peace with gays

WASHINGTON -- Senator John F. Kerry met privately yesterday with gay-rights groups to fortify a tenuous peace between his presidential campaign, which is seeking to neutralize gay marriage as a political wedge issue, and gay leaders who share feelings of anger and resignation toward Kerry for opposing the marriages that will begin in his home state Monday.

Kerry, who plans to spend Monday at a civil-rights celebration in Kansas and then a rally in Oregon, asked for yesterday's meeting with leaders of major gay-rights organizations to underscore his support for most of their agenda, such as AIDS/HIV funding, hate-crimes protections, and antibias measures in employment, education, and health care. His campaign also wanted to affirm the gay political community's support for Kerry should an outcry arise over his opposition to gay marriage.

Kerry reminded the leaders that he has one of the most supportive voting records on gay-related legislation in the Senate and that he would champion their causes as president, Kerry aides and gay leaders said yesterday.

Gay marriage has proved a sensitive and complicated issue for the presumed Democratic nominee, and his advisers are divided about whether these unions -- and the mix of controversy and celebration they are likely to engender -- present political dangers, or opportunities, for a Democratic presidential nominee from Massachusetts.

The complexity of the issue was evident yesterday when a Globe reporter asked Kerry whether he had personal wishes to offer gay couples who will be married in two days.

"It's not my job to start parceling out advice or saying things to people who make a decision that's very personal like that," Kerry said, before reiterating his opposition to gay marriage and support for full, marriage-style benefits for gay couples who enter civil unions.

"Obviously, I wish everybody in America happiness, and I want people to be who they are and respect who they are, but I happen to believe personally that marriage is a status between a man and a woman," he added. "I want everybody to feel fulfilled and to be able to be happy and live their lives. I happen to think there's a way to do that respecting rights under the Constitution and also respecting traditional value that's attributed to marriage in this nation."

Looking toward the Democratic convention in Boston this summer, the Kerry campaign is preparing for the media coverage, television images, and gay couples marrying at the same time as Kerry's formal presidential nomination goes to the delegates.

Kerry aides are also girding for a Republican effort to put Kerry on the spot by holding more hearings or a Senate vote on a proposed US constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. President Bush supports the amendment, while Kerry opposes it, saying marriage should be decided by state legislatures. In Massachusetts, Kerry has endorsed legislative moves to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage and create civil unions.

Given his stance on limiting gay marriage, at least on a state level, Kerry campaign aides are trying to respond to concerns of gay groups -- in part to avoid any protests during convention week against Kerry's stance on gay marriage -- and to make clear that gays have a seat at Kerry's political table.

Some gay-rights leaders still express dismay about Kerry: One person involved in the Massachusetts gay-marriage lawsuit likened Kerry's stance to a betrayal of his gay-rights record. Most of these same leaders say they will praise his overall record and stand by him once gay marriages begin Monday.

Gay-rights leaders say the Kerry campaign has contained outcry over his stand on gay marriage with a series of moves. They include hiring a top deputy who is gay as well as gay staff members and advisers, pledging to continue to support gay-rights issues as president, and making the case that Bush is strongly opposed to their political causes.

"John Kerry is the most pro-lesbian, -gay, -bisexual, -transgender candidate of any Democrat or Republican who has ever run for president," said Dave Noble, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, a gay-rights group. "We want to celebrate gay marriage during the convention in Boston, and while there are a lot of people who wish he'd taken a better stand on marriage, he was pro-gay on a lot of other issues before the rest of us were."

Within the Kerry campaign, officials acknowledge that the senator is walking a fine line on the issue: He wants to attack Bush for proposing a US constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage -- arguing, as he does at some campaign rallies, that the president "has no right to misuse the most precious document in our history in an effort to divide this nation" -- while not turning gay marriage into a political headache for himself.

Not all gay-rights groups have embraced this language entirely, however, though they share Kerry's criticism of Bush. Evan Wolfson, executive director of the Freedom to Marry, a gay-rights group that does not endorse political candidates, said that Kerry and like-minded politicians are advocating a "separate and unequal" alternative to marriage that would not unite Americans behind full rights for gays as well heterosexuals.

"Senator Kerry and others have not given a clear and simple answer -- that they believe in our country and uniting people instead of dividing them, and they believe in strengthening families," Wolfson said. "Kerry and others have a hard time just saying the words."

In polls and surveys, Democratic voters appear split on gay marriages and tend to oppose a constitutional amendment banning them. Many liberal and gay voters argue that it is a landmark civil-rights issue on which Kerry should exert greater leadership. Swing voters and independents, who Kerry is courting, tend to oppose gay marriage but do not count it as a serious issue.

Several Kerry campaign advisers say that, no matter how much controversy flows from the untold number of marriages from next week to Election Day, the candidate should not get caught up in the issue, because it will not be decisive in the race for the White House.

"What people are looking at is health care and Iraq, being for America a disaster in many ways, and the overall economy is still seeing an erosion of wages, so I don't think gay marriage is a hot-button issue for most people," said US Representative Barney Frank, an openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts who is close to Kerry and his campaign. "To the extent the White House tries to make it a big issue, when it has handover problems in Iraq on June 30, people may look at the president and say, 'I'm not for gay marriage either, but isn't there something better to do with your time?' "

Frank and several senators met with gay-rights groups in Washington Thursday to discuss the federal marriage amendment, among other issues. Frank predicted that Republicans would bring it to a Senate vote at some point, to make mischief not only for Kerry but also Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, who faces a tough reelection fight this year.

But David Winston, a strategist and pollster who has advised congressional Republicans, said he doubted that GOP leaders would use the amendment for political purposes, because it would risk a backlash even among voters who might support the amendment.

"Changing the constitution requires deliberate and extensive thought, and you don't want to rush into it," Winston said. "If it's not seen as deliberate and thoughtful, well, politicians understand the repercussions of that."

According to gay-rights officials who met with Kerry for one hour yesterday at his campaign headquarters, the senator acknowledged that his position on gay marriage was a disappointment to some in the room. No one in the group -- which included the Human Rights Campaign, AIDS Action, and PFLAG, a group of parents of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals -- pressed him to change his mind.

"Senator Kerry acknowledged what he saw as the depth of feelings and emotions on this and that there was disagreement," said one campaign adviser who attended the meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "No one wsa critical -- rather, people asked that he acknowledge in his speeches that gay people have relationships and all they're asking for, whether marriage or civil union, are full rights."

The adviser said Kerry agreed to make that point.

Meanwhile, Kerry reiterated his pledge to oppose the federal marriage amendment and to fight for nondiscrimination protections for gay youth in school and for homosexuals seeking health care. He was not asked, and did not lay out, how he would address gays serving in the military.

"He reminded us -- and we reminded him -- that he has been there for us on so many fights," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, who attended the meeting. "He understands that for our community, this is an election he must win."

Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.