FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 5, 2001

GLAD Will Challenge Anti-Gay Ballot Initiatives In The SJC

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) today announced it will seek review in the Supreme Judicial Court of Attorney General Thomas Reilly’s decision to certify two anti-gay constitutional ballot initiatives.  GLAD contends that the measures, which would prohibit state and local governments from extending rights and benefits to unmarried couples and families, fail to adhere to the constitutional rules for ballot initiatives.

“There are rules about the types of measures which may be proposed by initiative,”  said Mary Bonauto, GLAD Civil Rights Director.  “The Massachusetts Constitution says that initiated measures cannot target the ‘powers of the courts.’  These petitions take direct aim at the courts.  If this measure were ratified, the courts’ authority would be crippled, including the capacity to decide on the validity of certain out-of-state marriages, or to interpret laws in ways which include non-traditional families when appropriate—whether gay or non-gay.”

“Obviously we are disappointed in the Attorney General’s decision,” added Gary Buseck, GLAD’s executive director.  “We think the Office made a mistake and we will attempt to rectify it in court.”

On August 1, a group calling itself Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage filed two ballot initiatives which would change the state constitution to prohibit the state and any local government from extending to any unmarried couple or family the rights and benefits deemed exclusive to marriage, including domestic partner benefits, and also deny gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.  The group had announced plans to do so in May of 2000.

“These measures attempt to stop the clock by pretending that families still resemble Ozzie and Harriet of the Fifties and Sixties,” said Buseck.  “Families today come in all shapes and sizes, and these measures would stop municipalities and the Legislature from addressing the very real needs of unmarried families—both gay and non-gay—by providing family-based protections and support as well as domestic partner benefits.”

Individuals and organizations who supported GLAD’s legal argument in opposition to the certification before the Attorney General included a wide variety of labor unions, civil rights organizations, clergy, the Mayors of Boston, Cambridge, Newburyport, Newton, Somerville and Springfield, former Attorney General James Shannon, Mary Clare Higgins of Northampton, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts, the American Association of University Women, National Association of Social Workers, Massachusetts Chapter and others.

GLAD filed suit in April in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of seven same-sex couples from five counties across the state who were denied marriage licenses.  The Attorney General answered the Complaint in May, and the plaintiffs in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health moved for a summary judgment to resolve the case in the Superior Court in mid-August.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders is New England’s leading legal rights organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression.