Anti-gay marriage group stays out of latest petition drive

Well its nice to see some opponents are accepting the inevitable. Give it up it is a losing battle


SouthCoastToday.com: Anti-gay marriage group stays out of latest petition drive

BOSTON — The group that has led opposition to gay marriage says it will not participate in a petition drive to block out-of-state, same-sex couples from being married in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Family Institute said "there is no winning on this issue" because thousands of marriages will have taken place before the proposed ballot question could go to voters in November 2010.

A group called MassResistance is organizing the petition drive to reinstate a 1913 law that bars the state from marrying a couple if the marriage is illegal in their home state.

First, organizers must collect 33,297 signatures from registered voters by Oct. 29 to put it on the ballot.

The Legislature repealed the 1913 law this summer, and later attached an emergency preamble that made it effective immediately.

"By the time the measure reaches the ballot in 2010, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of out-of-state, same-sex couples already will have married in Massachusetts," said Kris Mineau, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute. "More importantly, even if the referendum effort were successful at the ballot in 2010, this governor and this Legislature — bent on exporting the same-sex marriage experiment — could easily pass another repeal in 2011."

By making the law go into effect immediately, instead of the standard 90-day wait, the Legislature took away the ability of the petition organizers to delay the repeal until it could go to voters.

— David Kibbe