Massachusetts readies for gays to wed, and for backlash

By Pam Belluck and Katie Zezima
The New York Times

Mitt Romney

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With the failure of last-ditch efforts by opponents, including Gov. Mitt Romney, to reverse a court order legalizing same-sex marriages, thousands of gay couples beginning tomorrow (as early as 12:01 a.m. in Cambridge) will seal their relationships with a stamp of official recognition that many never had dreamed possible.

"I wasn't aware of how repressed I felt," said Maryellen O'Neil, a plant manager for an elementary school in Truro, Mass., who will obtain a license tomorrow to marry Lisa-Annette DiStefano, her partner of 18 years.

"I had never thought that we could get married," O'Neil said, "and I didn't know that it meant very much to me. I found out it did when, the day after the judges made their ruling, I was waking up in the morning and I had a smile on my face before I even opened my eyes."

But O'Neil's union is also a symbol of the kind of tension and conflict that suffuse a state hotly divided over whether same-sex couples should be able to marry. Her first cousin is Thomas Finneran, speaker of the Massachusetts House and one of the state's most powerful opponents of same-sex marriage.

Finneran six weeks ago helped engineer the legislature's approval of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In an interview, he said his difficulty with gay marriage was not driven by his Catholic faith but based mostly on "uncertainty with regard to the long-term effect and impact on children" being reared by same-sex couples and a feeling that "the natural order of things" is "a man and a woman living together in matrimonial commitment."

The amendment cannot take effect unless it is approved again by the legislature and then by voters in November 2006, which means that Massachusetts for the next 2½ years will be full of political, religious and legal crusades by both sides of the issue.

How other states stand Washington state has a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. At least two lawsuits against the state and King County are challenging it. Meanwhile, at least six other states will have ballot items this fall proposing to amend the state constitution to strengthen existing bans on gay marriage and specify that gay marriages from other states would not be recognized. A breakdown: Amendment on ballot: Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah. Legislatures in each state voted to place the measures on the ballot. Lawmakers still deliberating: Legislatures in Alabama and Louisiana are debating proposed amendments. Petition drives under way: Citizen groups opposed to gay marriage are trying to collect enough voter signatures to place proposed amendments on the ballots in Arkansas, Michigan, Montana, Oregon and Ohio. Organizers in Michigan are confident; a county judge in Ohio has raised questions about the wording of the amendment. — The Associated Press and Seattle Times staff

"You will see a galvanizing opposition to the whole idea of same-sex marriage and the realization that marriage as we know it is under attack," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which opposes gay marriage. "It's no longer an academic debate. It's a public-policy crisis."

Weddings of several thousand gay and lesbian couples are under legal challenge in San Francisco, congressional candidates are facing pressure to explain their position on a proposed federal constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, and voters in at least six states will consider similar amendments to their state constitutions.

Gay-rights advocates in Massachusetts also will be preparing for a legal face-off, even as they try to make the first days of the marriages appear orderly, nonconfrontational and nonthreatening.

"From our perspective, what we're going to focus on is helping those couples who were waiting to get married to take that step," said Mary Bonauto, the lawyer with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders who won the court case in November that paved the way for same-sex marriage.

This watershed of gay marriage has created unusual juxtapositions.

Romney, a Republican, was invited to the wedding of one of his 2002 campaign volunteers, Darrell Martinie, a radio astrologer called the Cosmic Muffin and designated the "official state astrologer" by another Republican governor, William Weld.

Martinie, who said he felt "a little betrayed" by the governor's efforts to stop same-sex marriage, said he invited Romney to his wedding this month "to make a statement, and to say why don't you loosen up and come and see that your head doesn't fall off."

But Romney will not attend the wedding when Martinie exchanges vows with his partner, Edward Boesel.

"The governor was invited to Cosmic Muffin's wedding and will be unable to attend because of a prior engagement," a spokeswoman, Shawn Feddeman, said in an e-mail message.

Romney also cited scheduling conflicts for his inability to accept another invitation, this one calling for him to spend Tuesday, the day after the marriages start, testifying before a Senate subcommittee in Washington in favor of a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Feddeman said the governor may testify later.

For every euphoric same-sex couple anticipating marriage in this heavily Catholic state, there are counterparts such as Linda Kelley, who resigned as a state-appointed justice of the peace in Charlton, saying she had moral and religious objections to performing same-sex weddings.

"If I'm going to say I'm a Catholic, I'd better walk the talk and not follow along with this," Kelley said.

Litigation undoubtedly will arise when couples married in Massachusetts try to have their unions recognized in other states.

Chris Hinkle, a doctoral student in theology at Harvard, and Ralph Roberts, a Church of Christ minister, now live in Woburn, Mass., but will move to Phoenix in July with their 13-year-old son for Roberts' job. They are prepared to go to court if they are denied marriage benefits in Arizona, which has a law defining marriage as a heterosexual institution.

Opponents of gay marriage are expected to file legal challenges, too, including a possible effort to keep same-sex couples, who are entitled to state benefits but not federal ones, from having access to state programs that receive federal money, such as Medicaid.

Still, exhilaration already is palpable in gay-friendly Cambridge, which will hold a party at City Hall tonight and hand out marriage licenses just after midnight, including to two city councilors.

And Provincetown, a beach town and longtime gay haven, is touching up Town Hall's paint and bustling with bachelor and bachelorette parties.

"I haven't seen people so happy in this town in a long time," said Patricia Fitzpatrick, Provincetown's tourism director. "I'm a straight woman with five children and I'm working on my third husband, and I'm almost slightly giddy."

O'Neil, Finneran's cousin, will have a quiet ceremony, without her famous cousin, whom she sees at many family events. While she said he is cordial to her and DiStefano, and she long has been aware of his stance on gay marriage, his role in passing the constitutional amendment was still "like getting punched in the stomach."

Some of her friends and colleagues sent him e-mails, mentioning O'Neil and DiStefano and asking him to change his mind.

"This was an agonizing bit of turmoil for me," Finneran said about the decisions he made during the constitutional convention. "Maryellen and Lisa are dear, dear friends. They've been welcome in our home ever since they began their relationship, and they always will be."

He said that he and his cousin had "never actually had a long, detailed conversation about it, and in part I think that might be what has led to the anguish each side has felt."

But, he said, "It's been a known facet of the relationship that I have with any gay and lesbian friends, that when it comes to marriage, gee, guys and gals, no hard feelings but I really truly think that is the most important social arrangement and institution and I'm not prepared to enter into what might be an area of a lot of uncertainty."

At a recent pro-gay-marriage lecture, O'Neil picked up a bumper sticker that said "Overthrow Finneran." She briefly thought that as a pointed joke, "I should put it on my car, drive to the Statehouse and say, 'Nothing personal, Tommy, just politics.' "

After a small wedding ceremony this month, O'Neil said, "we're going to send out announcements to our families, and depending on who it is, I'll ask for support from some, and for the others I'll let them know that their world didn't change."

Finneran, she said, would fall in the latter category, receiving a card that will ask: "Did the Earth shake? Did the sky fall?"

Information on efforts to ban gay marriage in other states was provided by The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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