Massachusetts Marriage Amendment Bout Continues; Contenders Weigh In

by Bill Fancher and Fred Jackson
February 13, 2004

(AgapePress) - The debate over same-sex marriage moved into its second day in Boston, with the fate of the God-ordained institution -- and attempts to redefine it -- still in doubt.

Massachusetts lawmakers' deliberations went well into Wednesday night and continued into Thursday as new proposals for a constitutional amendment to prohibit homosexual "marriages" in the state were proposed and disputed. Two early versions of such an amendment failed, voted down amid passionate speeches on both sides of the issue.

During Wednesday's opening debate, lawmakers for and against the amendment came out swinging, as the Associated Press reports: State Representative Marie Parente, a proponent of the amendment to ban homosexual marriages, lamented that a state founded by Christian pilgrims has "thrown God out" and could someday impose acceptance of such marriages on churches that oppose them. "What's next," she demanded, "if we show our disdain for religion here?"

But her colleague, Representative Christopher Fallon, who is against the amendment, countered just as fervently. "I've read the New Testament," he said, "and I don't think Jesus Christ defines the word marriage as between a man and a woman."

Meanwhile on Wednesday, outside the Statehouse emotionally-charged exchanges between traditional marriage defenders and homosexual activists escalated from verbal confrontations to physical violence, and police even had to separate combatants in the hallways outside the House chamber. Paddy wagons were lined up at the Statehouse again on Thursday, and police were out in force in an attempt to maintain an uneasy peace.

As the debate in Boston continues, pro-family activists are keeping up an optimistic front. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says, in the end, marriage will be protected. "We're anticipating that we'll be successful," he says. "However, it's just the beginning."

Perkins says even if pro-family forces do not prevail in this particular battle, it will not mean the end of the struggle to defend the biblical concept of marriage. "This is going to be a long term process all across this country," he observes, "until we put marriage into our Constitution and protect it as being between one man and one woman."

Massachusetts activist Laurie LeTourneau of the group Mass Voices for Traditional Marriage agrees with Perkins that the current skirmish, though important, will not be ultimately decisive. She says regardless of the outcome of the debate in the Massachusetts legislature, God's institution of marriage will have to be defended over and over again.

LeTourneau questions the judicial or legislative logic of trying to force 98 percent of the population to accommodate the aberrant preferences of the remaining minority. "In Massachusetts, there are only 16,900 homosexual couples," the pro-family activist says, noting, "We needn't be changing laws and accepting ways that are considered deviant behavior."

The Mass Voices spokeswoman says she is tired of hearing lobby groups push the homosexual agenda as an equal rights issue when it has nothing to do with equal rights and "absolutely nothing to do with discrimination." Instead she says the homosexual agenda "has everything to do with usurping the power of the legislature and the power of the people."

Such as it is, LeTourneau expects the battle over marriage to continue raging here and in other states as well. Traditional marriage proponents across the U.S. are already gearing up to defend the sacred ground of the "one-man, one-woman" definition of marriage between their own state borders.