A proposed constitutional amendment that would have replaced nuptials with civil unions is heartily defeated.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, September 15, 2005

BOSTON -- Amid a pep-rally atmosphere, Massachusetts legislators yesterday overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to halt same-sex marriages in the state -- showing how quickly gay nuptials have moved from being a court-ordered imposition to a powerful political cause.

By a vote of 157 to 39, lawmakers voted down a proposed constitutional amendment that would have eliminated the same-sex marriages legalized two years ago and replaced them with "civil unions" for gay couples.

The vote leaves same-sex marriage as the status quo in Massachusetts, and it now seems likely to remain so until at least 2008.

But in a broader sense, the vote also illuminated how widely Massachusetts has diverged from much of the nation, where several dozen states have passed laws limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. California's legislature has passed legislation legalizing gay marriage that is now sitting on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk; he has said he will veto it.

Bay State politicians credit the weddings themselves with shifting the political momentum, saying their growing ordinariness had served to defuse some of the opposition.

"The difference is that we have marriage," said Democratic state Sen. Jarrett Barrios after the vote, while other supporters screamed and cheered nearby in a rally under a mural of the Boston Tea Party. "We've got a world that hasn't changed."

The lopsided defeat for the amendment was largely due to the fact that 55 lawmakers -- more than 25 percent of the legislature -- who had supported the amendment last year switched and voted no. Seventeen of the legislature's 18 freshmen lawmakers also voted against the amendment.

"I do think that a lot of people have been thinking over the last year," said Senate Republican leader Brian P. Lees, who abandoned his support of the amendment even though he was one of its cosponsors. He said he had nearly 8,000 letters and e-mails on the issue. "I don't think it was cynical," the East Longmeadow senator said of the switch. "It says in the Constitution you have to go through two legislative sessions, and things changed."

Many of the legislature's most ardent gay-marriage opponents also abandoned the compromise measure, preferring another proposed amendment that seeks an outright ban on same-sex marriage. If supporters obtain roughly 66,000 signatures in the fall, that measure will require just 50 backers in two successive sessions of the legislature to appear on the 2008 ballot.

The issue of same-sex marriage had been on the front burner since November 2003, when the state's supreme court ruled in favor of seven same-sex couples who had pressed for the right to wed.

The court found that "the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one's choice" -- making Massachusetts the first state to offer gays more than civil unions.

Weeks of emotional debate followed, as some state legislators sought to nullify the court's ruling. Finally, plans were made to amend the state constitution to permit civil unions but ban marriage. But such amendments require votes in two successive sessions of the state legislature.

The proposal passed in March 2004 but still required another vote, which was the measure turned down yesterday.

In the meantime, the weddings began. Since the first on May 17, 2004, more than 6,100 gay couples have wed -- about 17 percent of all the state's weddings during that period.

Each one made the idea of gay marriage more acceptable, observers say. The differences were noticed by politicians -- who say they started getting more letters in favor of the marriages -- and by public-opinion pollsters, who noted in March that 56 percent of state residents believed gay marriages should be allowed.

"It's one of those areas of politics where people have become accustomed to something that was once radical," said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Boston University. "It's just normative at this point."

By the time yesterday rolled around, support had collapsed for the civil unions measure. Pro-same-sex marriage forces were feeling too confident to compromise, and opponents of gay marriage had united behind another amendment that would eliminate gay unions of any kind.

Republican Governor Romney, who is contemplating a presidential bid in 2008, favors a complete ban on any legalization of gay unions. In an interview this week, he said he has concerns about whether children brought up by a same-sex couple could develop normally.

"The ideal setting for raising a child is where there is a male and female," Romney said.

Rehoboth State Rep. Phil Travis, a Democrat, was among opponents of the proposal.

"The union of two women and two men can never consummate a marriage. It's physically impossible," Travis said. "The other 49 states are right and we are wrong."

Critics of gay marriage said yesterday's vote was a necessary step to ready for their 2008 ballot effort. They said that they can now count on at least 60 legislative supporters of that ballot question, which is 10 more than needed to put it before the voters.

"This is fantastic, we're pumped," said Kristian Mineau, head of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which is spearheading the ballot initiative campaign. "This was a flawed amendment. The citizens wanted a vote on marriage with no add-ons, and this opens the gate. There are no more barriers."

Material from The Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Associated Press was used to compile this report.