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January 3, 2006
Law Suit Seeks to Protect Gay Marriage in Massachusetts
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:06 p.m. ET

BOSTON (AP) -- Gay rights activists sued on Tuesday in an effort to block a proposed constitutional amendment that would put an end to gay marriage in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit, filed by Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, challenges a September ruling by state Attorney General Tom Reilly that found the amendment drive was legal.

That ruling allowed backers of the amendment to begin collecting signatures. They gathered more than 120,000 -- well above the 65,000 needed to get the measure on the 2008 ballot.

Gary Buseck, GLAD legal director, said the Massachusetts Constitution bars any citizen-initiated amendment that ''relates to the reversal of a judicial decision.'' Reilly should have blocked the question from going forward on those grounds, Buseck said.

The proposed amendment is designed ''squarely and solely'' to reverse the landmark 2003 decision by Massachusetts' high court that legalized gay marriage, Buseck said.

A spokesman for Reilly did not immediately return a call for comment.

Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, one of the prime backers of the amendment, said the proposed amendment does not specifically try to reverse the court ruling but rather seeks to spell out the legal definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press