Opponents warn lawmakers that polygamy will be next
 
By Raphael Lewis
The Boston Globe
 
Opponents of gay marriage stepped up their rhetoric yesterday, warning state lawmakers that Massachusetts will soon see the legalization of marriages with multiple spouses if they do not overturn the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling allowing same-sex marriages.

"I think once you cross this bridge, this is a bridge gone too far," said Tony Perkins, who heads the Washington-based Family Research Council. "I think there's no turning back the clock."

Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, a Princeton University professor who spoke with Perkins at a State House press conference, said the SJC's ruling Nov. 18 paved the way for further challenges to traditional marriage. He said the courts would not be able to bar other arrangements made by consenting adults, once the heterosexual union of a man and a woman is adulterated.

Satinover said that what he called polyamory -- relationships involving any number of people, regardless of gender -- are "definitely the next arrangement that will be pushed just as soon as male-male unions and female-female unions are institutionalized in law." The Coalition for Marriage, a group of organizations pushing for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, called the press conference. Gay marriage supporters dismissed the polygamy argument as a myth. The argument appears to stem from the dissenting opinion penned by Justice Antonin Scalia in a 2003 US Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas, that overturned antisodomy laws in that state.

Disagreeing with the majority, Scalia wrote: "State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of . . . validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision."

Advocates of same-sex marriage, who held their own State House briefing yesterday, dismissed the argument by their opponents as "an old myth" that has little to do with fundamental rights of people.

Carol Rose of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said homosexuality is about "who they are," while multiple marriage "isn't about who you are."

"It's a practice," she said.

The four justices who wrote the majority opinion in the SJC's November ruling appear to agree. They stated "We construe civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others."

Allowing same-sex couples to marry, the justices wrote, "furthers the aim of marriage to promote stable, exclusive relationships."

"It advances the two legitimate State interests the department has identified: providing a stable setting for child rearing and conserving State resources," they said. "It leaves intact the Legislature's broad discretion to regulate marriage."

Tomorrow, lawmakers will convene to take up a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

In January, in response to the Supreme Court's Texas case, a Utah resident filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn that state's ban on polygamy. Yesterday, Brian Barnard, the man's lawyer, said he agreed that polygamy would be a natural outcropping of a decision to legalize gay marriages, but said that it was the federal ruling, not the Massachusetts opinion, that was the impetus for his case.

"I take great pleasure in being able to cite Scalia" in court filings, said Barnard, who works for the Utah Civil Rights and Liberties Foundation.
 
BostonGlobe.com
Originally published February 10, 2004
 
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