The Massachusetts Legislature voted March 29 to ban gay marriage and establish civil unions, approving a proposed constitutional amendment that would reverse the Supreme Judicial Court's historic ruling that legalized same-sex marriages.

The Massachusetts Legislature voted three times on March 11 to ban gay marriage and establish civil unions, but maneuvers by both opponents and supporters of gay marriage left it unclear whether the constitutional amendment would ever get to the voters. The House and Senate will resume their Constitutional Convention March 29, and other proposals may be considered then.

The state's historic court decision declaring same-sex marriages legal was left intact on Feb. 12, after a deeply divided Massachusetts Legislature was forced to adjourn its constitutional convention without passing a ban on gay marriage. Legislators scheduled their next convention session for March 11.

Activists on both sides of the gay marriage debate on Feb. 13 vowed to pump thousands of dollars into the campaigns of candidates who back their positions in the Legislature's constitutional convention, as strategists plot their next step.

In November, gays and lesbians celebrated a major victory, a Massachusetts court decision permitting, for the first time in US history, men to marry men and women to marry women.