Today a sufficient number of Massachusetts legislators voted for an anti-marriage amendment to advance it to the next Constitutional Convention.  It will need to pass there again in order to reach voters in November 2008.  Same-sex couples have been able to marry in Massachusetts since May 2004, the result of the ground-breaking lawsuit Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).

GLAD’s Executive Director Lee Swislow made this statement:

We may have lost today, but we are coming back in ’07 and we are going to win. Every day that passes, support for marriage equality grows across the Commonwealth.  Our opponents’ margin of victory was small, and we will soon have a governor who supports our rights.  With our colleagues at MassEquality, we will work day and night so that by the next ConCon, we will have the votes we need to defeat the amendment then and there. 

Marriage equality has brought a great deal of good to this state, its families and its communities.  It’s important to LGBT people across the country, as a symbol of possibility, of true equality and full inclusion in our society.  We will not give up what we have fought so hard to attain. 

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

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