Mass. voters on board: Bay State voters favor candidates who support same-sex marriage. Will current lawmakers be swayed?

Same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, but a proposal passed by the legislature last year to amend the state constitution has shrouded its future in uncertainty. The amendment, which would ban same-sex marriage and install civil unions in its place, must be passed in its current form again this year before it can go to voters in November 2006.

Opponents of the measure need 100 supporters of stone-sex marriage in the legislature to kill it, and following a special primary election on March 15, they were getting closer. Three marriage supporters were selected to replace three retiring antigay legislators, bringing the number of pro-equality lawmakers on the record to 89. As The Advocate went to press, a general election on April 12 promised an easy victory for all three: Democrats Mike Moran, Chris Speranzo, and Linda Dorcena Forry.

Forry's campaign manager, Stuart Rosenberg, said his candidate, who was set to replace antigay state house speaker Tom Finneran, ran a campaign solidly in favor of same-sex marriage, beating all three antigay rivals in the Democratic primary. "Linda didn't waffle on any issues," he said, adding that voters didn't care "whether a same-sex couple down the street got married or not."

Marty Rouse, campaign director for the gay rights group MassEquality, said the primary followed a November election in which state voters reelected every incumbent candidate who supported same-sex marriage. His organization is now targeting over 30 districts where legislators may be persuaded to change their vote when the amendment is considered again this fall. "We're making sure people talk to their legislators in their own districts," he said. "We need sex marriage is not just in Boston, not just in Provincetown, but everywhere in the state."

The effort is complicated by Dine legislators who voted no on the amendment last year because they were opposed to both stone-sex marriage and civil unions. "We can't count on them to vote no again," Rouse explained.

Meanwhile, California is one step closer to a Massachusetts-style supreme court decision after a superior court judge there ruled in March that same-sex couples must be allowed to get married. And as in Massachusetts, an effort is under way to get a state constitutional amendment before California voters in 2006 to ban same-sex marriage.

Friendly over unfriendly

Massachusetts Democrat Linda Dorcena Forry, a same-sex marriage supporter, will likely replace antigay former house speaker Tom Finneran.