Mass. Family Advocate Applauds Romney's Support for Traditional Marriage
by Chad Groening
June 24, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Massachusetts pro-family activist says he is pleased Governor Mitt Romney is supporting a constitutional amendment that would ban both same-sex "marriage" and civil unions in his state.
Kris Mineau is president of the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), a group that is pushing a citizens referendum to address the November 2003 ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which said that the state's constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. "We have formed a ballot question committee," the activist explains, "to pursue a citizens' initiative petition to amend the Massachusetts Constitution to clearly define marriage between a man and a woman and no other substitutes."
Mineau says he is glad Governor Romney has pledged to support the citizens' effort. "He's definitely taking a stronger stand," the head of the MFI contends, "and I would suspect that it has something to do with him trying to get more 'conservative credentialed' in a national prominence -- but I'm not complaining. I think his true colors are coming out. He comes from a conservative, moral background."
According to Mineau, the key to the measure the citizens group is promoting is that it prohibits both homosexual marriage and same-sex civil unions. He notes, "The governor has always stood with us in being against civil unions and for marriage being between a man and a woman."
The pro-family advocate points out that the group's attempt last year to get a legislative constitutional amendment "was thwarted by the legislature when they changed the wording to establish civil unions fully equal to marriage along with the definition of marriage between a man and a woman." He says MFI and other marriage defenders "see that as a totally flawed and unacceptable amendment."
Mineau says the current citizens' initiative being advanced by MFI is designed to replace a 2003 measure passed by Massachusetts lawmakers, which allowed legalized civil unions. If the state legislature approves the pro-traditional marriage measure, it would appear on the state's ballot in November 2008.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
