Domestic partnerships defined -- baltimoresun.com

Domestic partnerships defined -- baltimoresun.com

By Laura Smitherman
January 11, 2008

A Maryland legislative committee yesterday approved regulations that define domestic partnerships, despite the opposition of Republicans and conservative groups who said that classifying relationships between people who aren't married under state law could have far-reaching cultural and legal implications.A joint House-Senate panel approved by a 12-4 vote the emergency regulations proposed by the Maryland Insurance Administration. The agency drafted the regulations in response to legislation approved last year that requires insurance companies to offer coverage to domestic partners if employers or individuals request it.The hearing represented the opening salvo of a debate expected this year in the General Assembly over same-sex marriage. While the regulations don't specify that domestic partners be of the same sex, a broader debate is expected during this 90-day session on the rights of such couples.Gay-rights advocates plan to push for legislation that would allow same-sex couples to marry. The advocates are moving their fight to the Assembly after Maryland's Court of Appeals upheld a statute in September defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman."What everyone is trying to tap dance around is the whole marriage question," said Sen. David R. Brinkley, the minority leader from Frederick County. "This is a way to contravene the decision of the courts in the fall."Mary Ellen Russell, associate director of education and family life for the Maryland Catholic Conference, testified at the hearing that it is the full legislature's role to define domestic partnerships, not a committee's.Insurance Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler testified yesterday that the domestic-partner regulations provide clarity for insurance companies and consumers. The emergency regulations lapse after six months, but Tyler said he would promulgate final regulations before then.Tyler said that the law would have the biggest impact on individual insurance policies and small-business plans because most large public and private employers already provide domestic partner coverage.Domestic partners were defined as unmarried people at least 18 years old who have been in a committed relationship for more than six months and who share a common residence.
Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun

Albany church panel: Is gay marriage different?

Albany church panel: Is gay marriage different? --NY


Capital-area council sponsors a discussion about what makes a marriage a marriage

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer Click byline for more stories by writer. First published: Wednesday, January 9, 2008
ALBANY -- The Rev. Ellen Tatreau belongs to a denomination that considers homosexuality "un-Christian."
But as pastor of Albany's Emmanuel Baptist Church, Tatreau welcomes homosexuals.
The pastor took her support a step further six months ago when, for the first time, she performed a marriagelike "service of commitment" for a lesbian couple. Eight people attended.
"The first time was really a profound experience," Tatreau said. "Because I knew that the families of this couple were really struggling with this and did not see it as anything that should be sanctioned by the church."
The pastor shared the story Tuesday following a forum billed around this theme: "The Spirituality of Marriage: Is Gay Marriage Different?"
The Capital Area Council of Churches sponsored the discussion in a brick-walled hall at First Lutheran Church. A small crowd gathered over lunch to hear two pastors address a subject that has polarized government bodies around the United States and faith communities around the world.
The Roman Catholic Church has weighed in on the debate over legal recognition for gay unions with a declaration that "no ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman."
Homosexuality rattled the U.S. Episcopal Church following the 2003 consecration of V. Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop. A 2005 "equal marriage rights for all" resolution made the United Church of Christ the first mainline Christian denomination to support gay unions.
Stepping into this theological war zone, moderator Kitt Jackson stressed on Tuesday that the Council of Churches, a fellowship of over 85 faith communities, does not take a position on gay marriage. Whether such a thing should exist was not the topic of the talk, she said.
"It's meant to be a theological discussion of what makes a marriage a marriage," she said of the talk. "We did not want it to be a confrontational argument."
Tatreau began with a historical overview of marriage from the ancient Israelites to the United States.
The Israelites' society was patriarchal, their marriages geared toward procreation, perpetuating the man's name and maintaining and expanding his property, Tatreau said. She reminded the audience of Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines.
"Throughout most of Western history, marriage was not a mere personal matter concerning only a husband and wife, but was, rather, the business of their two families that brought them together," Tatreau said.
Marriage was an economic and political arrangement "with little regard for anything resembling affection of romantic love," she said.
Tatreau, whose church is on State Street, can perform same-sex commitment ceremonies because her American Baptist denomination -- more liberal than the larger Southern Baptist Convention -- has local autonomy. She has presided over two more since the first one six months ago.
The forum's other panelist, the Rev. Karha Us, has performed about 125 same-sex "holy union" ceremonies. The former co-pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of the Hudson Valley, Us and her partner of nearly 20 years drove to Vermont to join in a civil union.
They moved to Herkimer and are turning a farm into a retreat center for clergy.
"We're waiting for the day when we will be able to have a marriage," she said.
Marc Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or by e-mail at mparry@timesunion.com.

New Vermont group to oppose gay marriage: Times Argus Online

New Vermont group to oppose gay marriage: Times Argus Online


New Vermont group to oppose gay marriageJanuary 8, 2008
By Daniel Barlow Vermont Press Bureau
MONTPELIER – After spending months boycotting legislative hearings on expanding marriage rights to same-sex couples, opponents of are now ramping up their efforts against gay marriage.Several prominent opponents of gay marriage will announce at a Statehouse press conference Tuesday morning the formation of the Vermont Marriage Advisory Council, a group that will hold hearings on the benefits of traditional marriage.Stephen Cable of Rutland, the founder of the conservative group Vermont Renewal, said the formation of this traditional marriage council is in response to what he says is the pro-gay marriage leanings of the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection."The council will be holding forums to delegate information on the social goods that come with the institution of marriage," Cable said Monday afternoon. "After that, the council will open up the microphone to hear from Vermonters."Cable would not reveal the makeup of the commission – that detail is expected to be announced at the press conference today – but he did say that its membership includes a "broad-cross section of Vermont," including doctors and business leaders.The traditional marriage group Take It to the People will also become more active in the debate this year. Craig Bensen of Cambridge, a member of the group, said he plans to launch an effort called Let Vermont Vote – a push to put a nonbinding referendum on gay marriage before the state's voters in November.Placing the question on the statewide ballot would require a vote of the Vermont Legislature in this new session. If lawmakers really want to know how Vermont feels about this issue, they should support that effort, he said."Voters have never had the opportunity to weigh in on this debate," Bensen said. "All the decisions regarding same-sex couples have come from legislators and court justices."The news comes months after both groups vowed to tell their supporters to not attend the hearings held by the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection, the group formed by the Democratic leaders of the Vermont House and Senate last summer."I'll probably consult with the other members of the commission about this, but I think we'll be focused on completing the public hearings we have scheduled," responded Tom Little, the chair of the Vermont Commission on Family Recognition and Protection. "I have always encouraged one and all to come to these hearings."Cable and Bensen told reporters last year that members of the commission are biased in favor of gay marriage. At hearings across Vermont this fall and winter, the commission heard overwhelming support for gay marriage – but few, and sometimes no, voices for the status quo.Cable said he decided to boost his efforts to stop gay marriage in Vermont after watching members of the commission question Monte Stewart, the president of Utah-based Marriage Law Foundation, during a hearing at the Vermont Law School last year with other attorneys on the legal framework for civil unions and gay marriage.Stewart was the only attorney speaking that day who opposed gay marriage and he faced some tough questions – and outright disagreements – from members of the commission."That really set the tone for this council forming," Cable said.Stewart will return to Vermont this month for a forum organized by Cable. He will be joined by Dr. Patrick Fagan, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, who also opposed gay marriage, at the Jan. 19 event, which will be held at the University of Vermont in Burlington.Beth Robinson, an attorney with the Vermont Freedom to Marry Taskforce, whose courtroom arguments led to the civil union legislation, said she was disappointed with this latest development in the gay marriage debate."The Legislature created a good process to discuss gay marriage, but they opted not to take part in it," she said. "It's not too late either. There are plenty of opportunities to still be heard in that process."The Vermont Marriage Advisory Council announcement will be made in the Cedar Creek Room today at 9:30 a.m. Meanwhile, the Family Recognition and Protection Commission will hold at least three more gay marriage hearings before issuing its report in April.Meetings will be held in Bennington on Jan. 12 from 1-4 p.m. at the Mount Anthony Middle School; Feb. 2 in Rutland from 1-4 p.m. at the Godnick Adult Center and finally on Feb. 11 from 5-8:30 p.m. at the Williston Central School.On the Web: LetVermontVote.org and VTMarriage.org

Taking Stock of This Gay Election | Politics | Advocate.com

Taking Stock of This Gay Election Politics Advocate.com


Taking Stock of This Gay Election
Clinton, Edwards, and Obama all reached out to the community in different ways, leaving gay activists to choose which candidate's approach will produce results for LGBT equality.
By Kerry Eleveld
An Advocate.com exclusive posted January 8, 2008

The primary season has begun and, by my count, gay media got a total of 30 minutes of interview time with the top three Democratic presidential candidates – that’s 15 minutes with Hillary Clinton, and 15 minutes with Barack Obama. (The closest we got to John Edwards was an email exchange with his wife. Truth be told, I was grateful for the time she gave us given her health and schedule demands).
The aforementioned interviews were with The Advocate, and while I don’t mean to be egocentric, after speaking with various gay journalists/bloggers – including those from the hometowns of Obama, Edwards, and Clinton – to my knowledge, those treasured 30 minutes were the only one-on-one interviews conducted by gay outlets with the candidates.
The “glass half empty” view is: Once again, the LGBT community has been marginalized and relegated to minimal access. And here’s the “glass half full”: The two Democratic front-runners competed for our votes in a way never before seen. Heck, all the Democratic candidates made their pitch for our votes at the HRC debate that, while not perfect, was certainly historic.
Of course, the interviews with Sens. Clinton and Obama came about in different ways. The Clinton campaign agreed to schedule her interview, which took place in person, last summer; while the Obama campaign scheduled a “phoner” with us on the heels of the Donnie McClurkin setback he was grappling with in South Carolina – when the gay community became outraged that the lead singer for his statewide gospel tour was essentially an anti-gay ex-gay.
But the different reasons for these interviews, and even the fact that we never managed to secure one with Edwards, don’t necessarily prove that any of these candidates is more pro-gay or sympathetic to our issues than any other (though Sen. Clinton deserves credit for being the first to give us time).
Instead, the access they gave may more accurately reflect how familiar the candidates were with our community and the limitations of our press, how comfortable they were with the uncharted territory of openly courting LGBT votes just four years after gays became the pariah of politics, and the choices they made to get their message out in a changing media environment where blogs offer a somewhat insurgent, under-the-radar way to reach activists beyond appearing in a national gay publication.
Sen. Obama made a telling comment at the very end of my interview with him last October. Dismayed over the level of attention the community gave to the McClurkin imbroglio, he said, “It is interesting to me and obviously speaks to the greater outreach that we have to do, that [my record on LGBT issues] isn’t a greater source of interest and pride on the part of the LGBT community.”
He seemed genuinely disheartened that people didn’t know more about his stance for full repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (Edwards also supports full repeal, while Clinton supports partial repeal), or the fact that he sponsored a gay nondiscrimination bill in the Illinois state legislature, or that he regularly addresses AIDS and homophobia in black and religious venues that are not particularly gay friendly.
When he spoke about HIV/AIDS to evangelical leader Rick Warren’s congregation at Saddleback Church in California, Obama said, “Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes – to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say ‘This is your fault. You have sinned.’ I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.”
This is perfectly consistent with his message of bridging communities gay and straight, red and blue, black and white. But a big part of why many gays and lesbians don’t know Obama’s record here is because it wasn’t readily available. It required digging and a beat reporter covering his campaign at the national level – resources that are the province of mainstream magazines and big-city dailies. This is where a publication like The Advocate, viewed by many as essentially mainstream media, doesn’t actually have the same reporting capacity as those other outlets. Instead, the LGBT community and gay journalists were left to put together information piecemeal from sightings by bloggers at campaign events and the slow trickle of gay mentions that flow from the straight press.
The need to prevent this information vacuum is something the Hillary Clinton campaign seemed to understand from the start. The Clintons have worked with the gay community and courted its press and voters since Bill’s ’92 campaign, where they successfully reaped the benefits of seeking the gay vote without suffering any real drawbacks (at least until Bill got into office and tripped over his pledge to lift the ban on gays in the military). Perhaps prior experience made Hillary’s campaign more comfortable with their ability to control messaging and how a cover story on her in a national gay publication would play.
Meanwhile, the Obama and Edwards’s campaigns seemed more comfortable working the fringes of blogs and local LGBT pubs.
“One thing I will say for Edwards is that he’s been very proactive in working with bloggers, gay bloggers, in terms of outreach,” says Pam Spaulding, the blogger who created Pam’s House Blend. “His campaign contacted me early on with all of his complete responses to the HRC questionnaire and wanted that spread around. He obviously didn’t feel like he had anything to hide, even though he said he was not prepared to endorse full marriage equality. I think that that level of commitment to open communication has worked well for him.”
Spaulding, who is based in North Carolina, Edwards’s home state, says the Clinton campaign’s outreach to her has been “hit and miss,” while she’s had very little contact with the Obama folks.
Spaulding credits Edwards’s blog outreach to a greater comfort level for some candidates with what she calls a “glass ceiling” on how far blog news travels.
“If you do an interview with a blogger, it’s not going to go anywhere, by and large, unless it’s one of the big ones,” she says. “There’s a legitimacy that we don’t have, and everything that gets said in print – in The Advocate or Time magazine – it’s going to get spread wide; it’s going to get picked up by the cable networks, it’s going to become a story if they do an offhand quote that could be interpreted as a weakness or a weak point. So I think they’re very cautious, particularly with LGBT issues and speaking with the LGBT media.”
Time is also precious for candidates leading the pack, and doing interviews at the local level becomes a near impossibility. But history is one of the best gauges of how a candidate will behave when he or she becomes president, and it’s worth noting that Obama was very accessible to the LGBT press during his eight years in the Illinois state legislature.
“He always was open, certainly with our newspaper,” says Gary Barlow, editor of one of Chicago’s gay weeklies, the Chicago Free Press. “He didn’t avoid phone calls and stuff like that. We talked on occasion. When we called, he responded. I think that says something about a person.” Barlow adds that Obama's campaign has paid close attention to the newspaper and been communicative throughout the race.
Though the Illinois Human Rights Act did not pass until 2005, when Obama had already graduated to the U.S. Senate, he did sponsor a bill to outlaw workplace discrimination that included both sexual orientation and gender identity while he was still a state senator. Barlow says Obama also lobbied other legislators to vote for the pro-gay bills being considered. “When we’re talking about an African-American legislator in the state legislature, to have someone of his stature lobbying his peers was important,” says Barlow.
As a U.S. Senator, Clinton wasn’t quite as accessible to the local gay press, but she did do outreach with the LGBT community by speaking at events like an HIV/AIDS fundraiser for Gay Men’s Health Crisis and meeting with a group of about 45 LGBT leaders in October of 2006.
Clinton, true to her reputation, is extremely pragmatic if not cautious. On DOMA, for instance, instead of advocating for full repeal like Obama and Edwards, she staked out a position of partial repeal when answering the Human Rights Campaign candidate questionnaire last year. Clinton would leave in place the section of DOMA that allows states to self-determine the question of marriage without being obligated to recognize the marriage laws of other states. She would, however, reverse the section that does not allow the federal government to recognize state-sanctioned gay marriages. This goes part of the way to satisfying gay activists while not leaving her belly up to Republican attacks in a general election that she wants to force other states to embrace the marriage laws of a state like Massachusetts.
While that type of calculation angers gay activists, it can also produce results. HRC president Joe Solmonese credits a phone call Hillary Clinton placed to him before the second Federal Marriage Amendment vote in 2006 with potentially helping to shelve the FMA for the foreseeable future.
Before the vote, Clinton suggested to Solmonese that HRC conduct nationwide polling about the issue, which ultimately showed that although support for marriage equality had risen about 13 points since 2004, voters of every stripe were "enraged" that Congress was debating the issue rather than the Iraq war and gas prices.
Based on that data, HRC advised Democratic congressional leaders to direct their floor debates at the GOP’s focus on marriage to the exclusion of more pressing issues. By the time the vote was taken, two Republican senators switched their stances from 2004 and voted against the amendment. Losing those votes shifted the momentum of the FMA, making it less likely to be resurrected any time in the near future.
“She’s a real strategist,” Solmonese told me during a 2006 interview. Of course, that is one of the biggest criticisms levied against Clinton – that she’s too focused on polling and perhaps not guided enough by her heart. LGBT people relentlessly question whether Hillary would abandon gays and lesbians the way Bill did as president when he signed DOMA into law and agreed to the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a compromise.
But Sen. Clinton’s prudence – or what some deem as cunning – may be the very thing that keeps her from running a replay of her husband’s missteps on gay issues. Bill is the great “feel-good” politician, which is exactly how he got into what became the “don’t ask, don’t tell” debacle of his presidency. Campaigning at a gay fund-raiser in 1992, he reportedly pledged to lift the ban on gays serving in the military.
Hillary Clinton, by virtue of who she’s not, is the least likely of politicians to take a position on something that isn't thoroughly vetted. In contrast to her more free-flowing husband, she approaches every policy decision and political stance with great care. People may not like her maneuvering, but she has little chance of making promises she can’t deliver on – to gays and lesbians or anybody else.
As Susan Webster, an LGBT Clinton supporter in Iowa, said prior to the caucus, “Hillary gets criticized for being calculating and cold and then she gets called a politician … I want someone who is very thoughtful, very calculated, very strategic, and a politician. It’s a political job – the last guy we elected sounded like he was fun to have a beer with, and look where we are.”
Ironically, Obama’s biggest liability in the eyes of many in the community – his faith and whether his religious views might weaken his support for gay issues – also appears to be a strength. Few people are better positioned to confront homophobia in the church and in black communities. The McClurkin incident was clearly a low point for Obama with the community, but he does have a history of speaking truth to power and, in that sense, exhibits the trademarks of the uniter he claims to be.
As he told The Advocate while trying to douse the McClurkin fire: “Part of the reason that we have had a faith outreach in our campaign is precisely because I don’t think the LGBT community or the Democratic Party is served by being hermetically sealed from the faith community and not in dialogue with a substantial portion of the electorate, even though we may disagree with them.”
John Edwards, for his part, has been quite candid about his “journey” with understanding gay issues, saying all along that same-sex marriage “is the single hardest social issue for me personally” because of his religious background – a sentiment that much of straight America shares, whether we like it or not. While Spaulding questions whether Edwards is using religion as a “fig leaf” for what may be a more politically motivated stance, “at least he’s been honest about his limitations [on marriage] publicly,” she says.
He has also logged some firsts on the campaign trail: he was the first candidate to release a list of gay supporters, the first to really trumpet his support for a bill to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” (though Clinton went on record for repeal as early as 1999), and the first to have a spouse – and a daughter, for that matter – publicly endorse gay marriage. Say what you will about Elizabeth serving as a surrogate for John on the issue of marriage, she may have done more to raise the profile of marriage equality in mainstream America through his candidacy than any other campaign.
The question for LGBT voters seems not to be which of these candidates is more supportive of gay issues – they have all conducted more LGBT outreach than previous politicians in their shoes. It’s more a matter of which candidate one believes will achieve the best results – the strategist, the bridge-builder, or the journeyer.
Kerry Eleveld is news editor of The Advocate

NAACP Chair Opposing Fla. Same-Sex-Marriage Ban

NAACP Chair Opposing Fla. Same-Sex-Marriage Ban


By Yoji Cole
© DiversityInc 2007 ® All rights reserved. No article on this site can be reproduced by any means, print, electronic or any other, without prior written permission of the publisher.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond is joining a coalition of groups in Florida that oppose the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment, a measure that could ban same-sex marriage and protections that both straight, unmarried couples and gay and lesbian couples now enjoy, they say. A federal amendment to ban same-sex marriage has not passed, and increasingly, Americans support same-sex marriage or civil unions.

How does your state measure up on same-sex marriage?

Why is Florida taking on this issue now? Putting an amendment on the November ballot that would ban same-sex marriage in Florida is expected to motivate increased voter turnout for a hotly contested presidential election that will again place Florida in the center of national politics.

The Florida Marriage Protection Amendment "defines and preserves marriage as the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife [and] prohibits any other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof from being valid or recognized as marriage," according to Florida4Marriage, an organization campaigning in support of the amendment.

Also, "The amendment does not prohibit the state or local government from passing laws which confer rights to unmarried persons as long as the laws are not designed to treat unmarried relationships as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof," reports Florida4Marriage.

Fairness for All Families, a statewide coalition of groups who oppose the measure, says the amendment's language is deceptive and too broad. The amendment will affect unmarried straight couples, such as senior couples who have chosen to remain unmarried after being widowed, they say.

"What they included is language that says 'substantial equivalent,' and that's not defined, so it is intended to go well beyond blocking marriage for same-sex couples," says Nadine Smith, a board member of Fairness for All Families. "It takes away any legal protection for unmarried couples, gay or straight … Advocates for seniors talk with authority and passion of the impact of stripping away legal benefits for seniors who chose not to remarry after they're widowed."

It is hoped that Bond will influence NAACP members to vote down the amendment, added Smith. "His voice is an important and powerful voice in opposition to this harmful amendment. He's someone who speaks with wisdom and authority on the kind of harmful impact of singling people out and making it harder on people to take care of their loved ones."

Bond was not available for comment and the NAACP did not provide a statement.

Ireland to recognise UK civil partnerships- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

Ireland to recognise UK civil partnerships- from Pink News- all the latest gay news from the gay community - Pink News

7th January 2008 14:20Tony GrewThe Republic of Ireland will recognise same-sex marriages, civil unions and civil partnerships from other countries when it legalises same-sex unions later this year. The Irish Times reports that "civil unions or weddings will have the same legal recognition as new civil partnerships in Ireland, as long as they meet a number of conditions."The UK already recognises same-sex unions and marriages from nearly 20 countries, including Canada, the US and France. At present Irish citizens are entering into partnerships in the UK, Canada and other nations. Last month Ireland's Minister of Justice rejected the possibility of a referendum to allow gay marriage.Labour Minister Brian Lenihan said civil partnership was easier to achieve, because gay marriage would require a constitutional change that would split the country.Speaking at the annual meeting of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network, he said he was keen to guarantee equality to gay people."This government, as our agreed programme reflects, is committed to full equality of opportunity for all in our society. "In particular, we are committed to providing a more supportive and secure legal environment for same-sex couples" he said."I believe equality for same-sex couples can be achieved through a diversity of legal arrangements."I am very keen that in the interests to your community we should proceed now to bring in a law that will give recognition and protection to same sex couples who are involved in loving stable relationships."The Minister said that the expected law should allow couples to formalise their relationships, undertake mutual rights and obligations, obtain legal protection and legal benefits for their relationships.In 2007 the Prime Minister of Ireland Bertie Ahern said that legislation would be approved during the lifetime of his government.According to Leninan, it is now expected to be introduced by March 2008.GLEN welcomed the Minister's words, but added that only through marriage it was possible to achieve real equality and that they would continue to ask for it.GLEN's Chair Kieran Rose said that his organisation expected "principled, equality-based and comprehensive" legislation.Homosexuality was decriminalised in the Republic of Ireland in 1993.Both discrimination and incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation are illegal.

Advocate turns to blacks to make a case for gays - The Boston Globe

Advocate turns to blacks to make a case for gays - The Boston Globe

By John C. Drake, Globe Staff January 6, 2008
As a plaintiff, he won over the state's highest court.
As an advocate, he helped persuade the Legislature.
Now, as chairman of the state's leading gay rights organization, David Wilson says he is determined to make the case to his own community.
MassEquality, a gay marriage advocacy coalition, has launched a statewide push to increase support for its cause among black residents of Massachusetts. The effort is a priority for Wilson, an African-American who was named the group's chairman in October.
He knows it will be a challenge.
Many black people in Massachusetts and across the country have reacted unsympathetically to the gay rights movement, especially to efforts by gay rights advocates to link the fight for marriage rights to the civil rights movement.
Gay rights advocates say with the battle against a constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage in the state now behind them, they are beginning a concerted effort to speak directly to the black community, hoping the approach can change some minds in the Bay State and serve as a national model for outreach to minorities.
"We have defeated the amendment, and clearly we need to educate the broader community about equal marriage," Wilson said. "We have a lot of work to do, because this is just a step forward in this equal-marriage fight across the country. If we get it right here in Massachusetts, we can expect to use this model elsewhere."
For Wilson, who was among the plaintiffs in the landmark SJC case that made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts and one of the first gay men to be married, the effort is personal.
"Having grown up in Boston and experiencing all of the discrimination as a young boy growing up in the '60s, and now as a gay man, it was a high priority for me to reach out to my own community," he said in a recent interview.
But his experience has made him realize how difficult it is to find gay, black advocates to speak publicly, and to find receptive audiences in black communities.
"I had many one-on-one discussions, but when I tried to call for more of a group meeting, it was very difficult," he said. "First of all they had to identify as a gay or lesbian couple to come to the meeting and potentially be outed by the community and the church. It was pretty impossible to talk to people as a group."
When the Legislature blocked a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on June 14, Wilson noticed that among the excited throng gathered outside the State House, there were very few black supporters.
"There were people of color in that audience, but not the numbers that should be there," he said. "With that number, we should have something similar in the audience."
An August 2007 national poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 27 percent of black respondents favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry, compared with 36 percent of the general population. Community leaders and gay-rights advocates say support for same-sex marriage among black churchgoers tends to be lower nationally.
While there have been numerous Massachusetts polls on gay marriage, several pollsters in the state said they either did not gather racial data or the number of black respondents was too small to draw conclusions.
In October, soon after Wilson took office, MassEquality rolled out a plan to distribute among its supporters a pamphlet geared to black residents. It includes statements and stories from black, gay couples and prominent black supporters of gay rights. It also presents the contention that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, not a religious one.
Even its title, "Jumping the Broom," invokes the way family bonds triumphed over racist legal barriers in black history. During slavery, black couples who could not legally marry would symbolically jump over a broom to symbolize their bond. It is a custom still practiced in many black weddings today. The pamphlet was developed by the National Black Justice Coalition, a gay rights group, for use during Maryland's same-sex marriage battle. It was customized for a Bay State audience.
"It's really going to take this narrow focus of community forums, community by community, and turning it into a message that individuals and groups of individuals can take out and teach on their own," Wilson said, describing MassEquality's plan to send supporters out to lead small-group meetings. "It will be run by people in the community, straight and gay parents who want to help their children and families understand the value of equal marriage for all, not just for white gay and lesbian couples."
The effort's initial steps have sputtered, as evidenced by two sparsely attended forums in Worcester and Boston in October, and a train-the-trainer session at the Harriet Tubman House in the South End, which was canceled in mid-November after organizers arrived to find the doors locked.
Al Toney, the Worcester diversity consultant who was hired by MassEquality to organize the effort, said it was a scheduling mix-up. The session is being rescheduled for later this month.
But Toney, who is black and gay, said cultural and religious opposition to gay rights also has blocked some of his initial efforts to speak to churches. One black pastor in Worcester was reluctant to allow him into his church to speak to congregants, but agreed to accept some of MassEquality's materials, place them in the church's foyer, and announce that they were available at the end of a Sunday service, he said.
"People went back and got the books, but there was such a clamor and uproar from some of the people within his church that he had to remove the books and flier," said Toney, who declined to identify the pastor for fear of damaging a relationship with a religious leader who had at least spoken with him. "We know it's a very tough sell, especially within the black community and the religious community, to even have these discussions," he said.
The Rev. J. Anthony Lloyd, pastor of the Greater Framingham Community Church, the largest majority-black congregation in Boston's western suburbs, said MassEquality probably will continue to face opposition.
He said MassEquality has not yet approached him. "I'd tell them 'Thank you very much, but no thank you,' " Lloyd said. "This isn't just the issue of somebody's arguing about their civil rights, but this is also a religious issue that goes to the very core and foundation of who our church is and what our church is about."
Lloyd said that since gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, he has declined two requests from same-sex couples to perform their ceremonies.
The opposition to MassEquality's effort in the black community is not just based on faith. Even supporters of the group's cause question the timing of the effort, more than five years after MassEquality was founded.
The Rev. Irene Monroe, a Cambridge minister who is black and a lesbian, has spoken against the refusal of some conservative black clergy to support same-sex marriage. She agreed to appear on a panel during the Worcester forum. But she called the effort by MassEquality a token gesture.
She said MassEquality should have been speaking to the black community all along, tying same-sex marriage to the need to strengthen family bonds.
"If the discourse was centered around saving the black family, you would have gotten a lot of black ministers and black people coming on board," Monroe said. "The tension around class and race is so sharp here in this community, this issue is one more way in which it happens. To think of us as an afterthought is not a perception, it's a reality."
Wilson said MassEquality did not launch a concerted outreach effort to the black community until six years after it was founded because officials did not think there was adequate time to have in-depth conversations while it was embroiled in legal fights and lobbying efforts.
"We actually did, from the very beginning of MassEquality, reach out to blacks and communities of color, but the take rate was pretty limited, mostly because of the cultural and religious barriers," Wilson said.
"Clearly if there were going to be other initiatives brought from the back burner to the front, this was going to be one of them for me," he said. "It will require a lot of work, which we're now wiling to do."
John Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.