A Look at the Proposed Massachusetts Marriage Amendment

On November 18, 2003, after a long legal battle marked by furious public debate, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. Almost immediately same-sex marriage opponents began the process of trying to reverse the decision. By November 2005 a group called VoteOnMarriage.org had collected thousands of signatures on a petition to put a constitutional amendment before Massachusetts voters on the November 2008 ballot. The proposed amendment reads:

When recognizing marriages entered into after the adoption of this amendment by the people, the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall define marriage only as the union of one man and one woman.

The amendment would ban all future same-sex marriages and has no provision for civil unions, though it would not dissolve those marriages that have already taken place.

On September 29, 2006, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly ruled a 1913 law that forbids out-of-state residents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be permitted in their home state did not apply to residents of Rhode Island because that state does not specifically ban gay marriage. The ruling allows same-sex couples from Rhode Island to marry in Massachusetts, but cannot guarantee that Rhode Island will recognize these marriages.

Same-sex marriage advocates praised the decision as another step toward marriage equality. Gov. Mitt Romney begrudgingly acknowledged that he can do nothing to stop Rhode Island couples from marrying in Massachusetts, but used the opportunity to again voice his support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

(See page 2 of this article for updates on where the proposed amendment issue currently stands.)

Massachusetts was the first, and remains the only, state in the union to legally recognize same-sex marriages. And though the state is usually portrayed as firmly liberal, the right to marriage equality remains on shaky ground in Massachusetts. Below is a timeline of events that led to the landmark case that legalized marriage equality.

Timeline:

• March 2001: Hillary and Julie Goodridge, partnered for 17 years, are denied a marriage license.
• April 2001: The couple takes the issue to court. They and six other couples are the plaintiffs in Goodridge v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which challenged state laws restricting same-sex couples from marrying.
• November 18, 2003: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled by a 4-3 majority that “barring a person from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts constitution.” The court gave the legislature 180 days to comply.
• February 2004: With the legislature debating whether to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, the court reaffirms its decision emphasizing that civil unions will not satisfy their ruling.
• May 17, 2004: First legally recognized wedding licenses granted to same-sex couples in Massachusetts. More than 1,000 couples across the state line up to get marriage licenses. Marcia Kadish and Tanya McCloskey become the nation’s first legally married same-sex couple.

By the fall of 2005, local and national opponents of same-sex marriage had an unprecedented 140,000 voter signatures supporting the cause of a Constitutional amendment. On September 7, 2005, Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly certified the proposed amendment as a valid referendum. The amendment was challenged based on a provision in the state Constitution that prohibits using an initiative petition to reverse a judicial decision, but the court ruled unanimously that the amendment does not violate this provision.