Windows on Our Community

Photo: Marilyn Humphries Massachusetts State House, February 11, 2004 Day One of the Constitutional Convention Octavio Delgado of Brookline, MA, joined the crowd outside the State House to support the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage as the legislature convened on the first day of a state constitutional convention. The legislators planned to take up a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. Thousands of people from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities came to the state house to lobby their legislators to oppose the proposed amendment. Anti-gay marriage proponents, most of them bussed in from out of state, also came to express their opinions. After four days of heated debate, a compromise amendment was passed by a handful of votes promising civil unions while also prohibiting same-sex marriage. The constitutional convention must reconvene in 2005 and pass the amendment again before placing it on the ballot for a statewide referendum. “Here’s the quintessential message about the constitution for me—‘Defend It.’”