In Massachusetts, a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage but establishing civil unions has already passed in the state legislature. If it is passed again in the next legislative session, it will go before voters in a referendum.
But in a show of support for same-sex marriage, more than 2,500 delegates to the Democratic state convention in Lowell voted on Saturday to endorse same-sex marriage in its official platform. Previously, the party had supported domestic partnerships.
Kris Mineau, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, says his group will continue to lobby against same-sex marriage and civil unions.
“The very fundamental building block of any culture is marriage and family,” he says. “Anything that’s detrimental to that, we need to do everything to make it right.”
He adds that opponents of same-sex marriage face a greater challenge in Massachusetts than in more conservative states. But at the same time, Mineau says, “we’re not that different than Oregon,” referring to that state’s approval last year of a same-sex marriage ban.
THE VIEW ON CAMPUS
At Harvard, members of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance will travel to City Hall tomorrow for the anniversary celebration, according to Public Relations Chair Mischa A. Feldstein ’07.
According to a December 2003 Crimson poll, 77 percent of students supported the state court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
The Harvard Republican Club (HRC), which endorses the agenda of the national party, has joined the party and President Bush in supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
The proposed amendment died last summer in the Senate by a vote of 50-48 but is expected to come up again in the future.
Some HRC members called on the club last year to drop support of the FMA, but Joshua A. Barro ’05 says the debate within the club has largely died down since then.
“It’s not an issue that unites us, and I don’t think it’s been talked about that much,” says Barro, who led an unofficial band of supporters to City Hall last May to celebrate the first same-sex marriages.
“But 50 years down the road, you’re going to see that the calamity people predicted isn’t happening,” Barro adds. “Civil unions have not been splitting up heterosexual families.”
The sense that future generations will find same-sex marriage less controversial—which polls have tended to support—hovers in the background among supporters, while they also predict short-term fluctuations.
Students for Marriage Equality, a group affiliated with the Harvard College Democrats, has canvassed for state legislative candidates who support same-sex marriage over the last year.
One member, Joshua D. Smith ’08, says he believes support for same-sex marriage will “eventually be one of the national platform issues....Eventually—I’m not saying when—it will be adopted.”
“In a way, it’s a very selfish thing for me to do,” Smith says of his canvassing. “I want it when I get married; I want to be able to marry anyone I want.”
—Staff writer Brendan R. Linn can be reached at blinn@fas.harvard.edu.