Decision on gay marriages expected today

BOSTON (AP) – Gay-rights activists, conservative leaders and media from around the globe converged on the Statehouse on Tuesday while legislators at the epicenter of the contentious issue worked feverishly to try to find some middle ground – or somehow find a way to prevent same-sex weddings from taking place in the spring.

A week after the state’s highest court made it clear that nothing short of full-fledged marriage would be legal under the state’s current constitution, legal maneuvering and legislative wrangling reached a new intensity on the eve of Wednesday’s constitutional convention.

Less than 24 hours before the session was to begin, a bipartisan group of Senate leaders proposed amending the constitution to ban same-sex marriage and establish civil unions in Massachusetts. Under the proposal, gay couples who wed between mid-May – when gay marriages would begin taking place across the state – and November 2006, the earliest voters could change the constitution, would be stripped of their marriage licenses and be considered part of a civil union.

“We should not engage in a divisive, all-or-nothing debate that may end by eliminating all rights for same-sex couples,” Senate President Robert Travaglini and Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees, R-East Longmeadow, wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to their colleagues.

The gay-marriage issue has created an unprecedented spectacle at the Statehouse: As many as 4,000 spectators and 300 media members are expected to attend the afternoon start of the constitutional convention, and a furious lobbying effort was already under way.

Christian conservatives used a dolly to haul in more than 18,000 petitions signed by citizens from across the country urging lawmakers to pass the amendment. Meanwhile, children of gay couples traveled to the Statehouse to plead with the Senate president “not to write discrimination into our constitution.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Charles Rasmussen, spokesman for House Speaker Thomas Finneran, a Democrat who supports the amendment. “And I’m told this building has never seen this kind of scrutiny from the national media that anyone can remember.”

Camera crews from London, Japan and Spain are seeking credentials for the event, and authorities planned to beef up security to handle the crowds.

Massachusetts put itself at the very center of the gay-marriage debate when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 in November that gays should be guaranteed the benefits of marriage. Lawmakers thought that Vermont-style civil unions might suffice, but the court issued an advisory opinion last week that left no doubt: Only full-fledged gay marriage would be legal under the current constitution.

That cleared the way for the nation’s first legally sanctioned same-sex weddings by May.

At the constitutional convention, the House and Senate will meet together to consider 10 proposed constitutional amendments. The gay-marriage issue is near the bottom of the agenda and might not get to a final vote for days.

Another proposal on the agenda is an amendment that could require the state’s judges to be elected rather than appointed – an issue that has taken on added significance because of the court’s polarizing stance on gay marriage.

If approved by the Legislature during this session, the gay-marriage amendment would have to again be ratified by lawmakers during the 2005-06 session before it could wind up on the November 2006 ballot.

The last time Massachusetts lawmakers in the heavily Roman Catholic state had a chance to weigh in on the issue of gay marriage was in 2002, when the constitutional convention was gaveled to a close before any vote took place. Near-brawls erupted among citizens who attended and raised voices were heard in the normally sedate chamber.

As the hours ticked down to Wednesday, lawmakers circulated proposed changes to the amendment, hoping to secure the necessary 101 votes among the 199 sitting lawmakers to get it passed.

Neither proponents nor opponents of gay marriage seemed enamored with the proposal floated by Senate leaders that would specifically allow for civil unions, while retaining language that would ban marriage for gay couples.

“We find that reprehensible,” said Ron Crews, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which opposes gay marriage. “We need legislators who will have the courage to take a stand to preserve and protect marriage as it is currently worded. We would encourage the legislature not to cloud this with any other language at this date.”

Gay-rights advocates said the proposal, which appeared to be gaining some momentum, did nothing but camouflage what they consider to be a bigoted amendment.

“At the end of the day, they’re writing discrimination into the constitution and putting a fresh coat of paint on it,” said Amy Hunt, director of the LGBT Aging Project, a state gay-rights group. “I think everyone understands that most of what happens in this building is the product of compromise.”

Finneran, who is opposed to same-sex marriage, prepared to enter into open conflict with the state’s highest court by trying to come up with a legislative way to block marriage licenses from being issued to gay couples in mid-May.

Finneran said he was trying to avoid the legal confusion that would ensue if same-sex couples were allowed to marry for two years before voters are given the opportunity to strip away those rights in 2006.

“Voters must be given a chance to speak,” Finneran said. “They have the penultimate constitutional authority, not four judges.”

But legal experts said it was “in blatant violation of the court’s decision.”

“It’s so clearly in violation of the court’s decision that it’s hard to see how any judge would not almost immediately strike that down,” said Paul Martinek, editor of Lawyers Weekly USA. “It’s an attempt to thwart a decision he doesn’t like, but that doesn’t make it legal.”

AP-ES-02-10-04 1757EST