Boston Globe, May 9, 2001
(http://www.boston.com/globe )
Finneran backs ban on same-sex marriages
By Associated Press, 5/9/2001
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran said yesterday he will back a bill to ban gay marriage.
Supporters of that bill -- which would specify that only heterosexual couples can wed in Massachusetts -- plan to converge on the State House today.
"Marriage is an institution that should be revered,'' Finneran said in his first public remarks on the proposal. Finneran said Massachusetts should not follow the lead of Vermont, which last year became the first state to recognize civil unions between gay and lesbian couples. No state recognizes gay marriages.
The bill, sponsored by Finneran's Ways and Means chairman John Rogers, a Norwood Democrat, would define marriage in Massachusetts as ''a legal relationship between one man and one woman'' and deny the legal benefits of marriage to any other type of relationship. It would also require the state not to recognize same-sex marriages that take place in other states.
Gay activists say the bill would make people in gay relationships ''legal strangers.'' Finneran expects the measure will come up for a debate in the House this session.
State Senator Cheryl Jacques, Democrat of Needham, predicted the bill would fail. She said gay unions do not weaken marriage. ''The strength of one couple's relationship for good or bad has nothing to do with whether or not the gay couple down the street is joined in a union that gives them legal protection,'' she said.
Bryan Rudnick, executive director of the Massachusetts Citizens Alliance, a conservative family advocacy organization, said the group plans to deliver 22,000 signatures in support of the bill.
The Massachusetts Catholic Conference also backs the bill. Swift angered some gays and lesbians last month when she vowed to veto gay marriage legislation. Last month, seven gay and lesbian couples, financed by the same group that sued for legal civil unions in Vermont, filed a lawsuit seeking to force Massachusetts to recognize same-sex marriages.
Without marriage, gay couples can be denied the same legal protection straight couples have when it comes to taxes, home mortgages, visits to children's teachers, health insurance, and just being able to see a hospitalized partner or child, the couples said.
Last year, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge struck down a Cambridge city ordinance that gave gay workers and their partners the same health insurance and benefits as straight couples. US Representative Barney Frank, who is gay, has filed legislation in Congress that would require the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages that are sanctioned by individual states.
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