National events expected to flavor debate

One month ago, all eyes were on Massachusetts, as it waded into the depths of the debate over gay marriage. Its mid-February constitutional convention was the epicenter of discussion, drawing opponents and supporters from far and wide to make impassioned arguments on the State House steps and in its hallways.

In the weeks since, the gay marriage debate's contours have been radically reshaped in locales across the country.

In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized same-sex marriages. In New Paltz, N.Y., Mayor Jason West performed same-sex marriages. And in Oregon, the state's most populous county began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Forces on the other side have rallied, as well. President Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. US Senate majority leader Bill Frist warned of a nationwide "wildfire."

Legislatures in Wisconsin and Kansas moved forward constitutional bans on gay marriage, while Georgia killed a proposal but resurrected it for reconsideration.

Against this changed landscape, Massachusetts legislators return to the debate today, resuming the extraordinary discussion that ended in a draw on Feb. 12 after three failed attempts to establish a ban on gay marriage. On the table is a compromise that would include a gay marriage ban but also establish civil unions, a proposal advocates on both sides dismiss.

But unlike last time, some say, the national dimensions of the debate will inexorably factor into the discussion here, just as Massachusetts has weighed on the minds of legislators and residents of other states.

"What has happened nationally has caused the issue here in Massachusetts to stay on the front burner, and some legislators see the need as even greater to protect marriage as we've always known it," said Ron Crews, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

"Seeing what's going on in California and so on, some see the need to take a stand here in Massachusetts."

Indeed some legislators, such as Philip Travis, a Democratic representative who sponsored one of the defeated gay-marriage bans and who does not support civil unions, told the Associated Press that lawmakers need to get something done to quiet the controversies elsewhere in the country.

Still, others said that to allow the events around the country to weigh in the decision-process amounted to shirking their duty to exercise judgment.

"The idea that anyone would have their minds changed by what goes on, by the way the wind blows, to me is showing a complete lack of conviction," said Senator Mark Montigny, a Democrat of New Bedford, who supports gay marriage. "It should have nothing to do with that. It should be solely decided by moral conviction."

"I hope there is no influence of external events," he said. "But we'll see. It could very well affect the events tomorrow, because the situation is so fluid." Shifts in the gay marriage terrain have come at a dizzying pace in recent weeks. For months, the debate seemed shaped by the tidy dimensions of the judicary here, bounded by measured decisions buttressed by logic and the law.

Even when the state's highest court broke ground by ruling that gay and lesbian couples were entitled to the protections of marriage, other cities and states did not immediately act.

With the move of the debate to the Legislature in February, though, the discussion took on a different form and texture.

Words on a page became voices and faces; carefully distilled arguments became emotional, highly publicized pleas.

All of which, some say, touched off a furious relay of reactions, from California to New York.

"There is no doubt that a lot has happened in the shadow of Massachusetts' first constitutional convention," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which opposes gay marriage. "This was a first time such a radical change in social convention was debated in a public arena."

Jonathan Katz, the executive coordinator of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University, said, "What's happened is it's become a popular issue, in a way that it wasn't before, with a lot of people acting on their opinions in all different ways and not content to let just the courts have their say."

Others say the events in the last month are merely an emergence of long-standing efforts by gay and lesbian activists to secure gay marriage.

They say the bubbling now comes as a culmination of efforts, not because of a single catalyst.

"The tremendous developments of the last week . . . are related to the strong momentum built in the past year 2003," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. "I wouldn't put inordinate significance on the constitutional convention."

Even as the debate spreads to new corners of the nation and is no longer the exclusive province of Massachusetts lawmakers, some observers say the state retains a unique position in the debate by virtue of having approval of gay marriage from the state's highest court.

As such, any move here to establish gay marriage, or its defeat, has a greater impact than elsewhere.

"Massachusetts' centrality will by no means be dimmed," Katz said. "All these other moves to create gay marriage will be contested in the courts. What's happening in Massachusetts will be kosher."