Massachusetts
What's Happening
Equality is on the move in Massachusetts!
In June 2007, Massachusetts legislators defeated by a vote of 151-45 a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (50 votes were required to send the ban to the ballot). In the years since the landmark Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Goodridge ruling, HRC has played a key role. HRC was one of the coalition partners that helped form MassEquality, contributed one-half of the initial seed money to hire Marty Rouse, MassEquality’s first campaign director (the other half came from NGLTF), contributed more than $1 million in direct financial assistance to MassEquality and sent staff at key times (Toby Quaranta and Mary Zicari were both deployed to do field work in the weeks before the final vote). In addition, former MassEquality campaign director Marty Rouse and deputy campaign director Jeremy Pittman are now at HRC.
The Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary held hearings on March 4th on a bill to add gender identity and expression to the state’s existing anti-discrimination and hate crimes statutes (HR 1722). The hearing lasted well into the night, and Committee members heard overwhelmingly from supporters of the legislation. Diego Sanchez, a member of the HRC Boston Steering Committee and a former co-chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), read testimony from Congressman Barney Frank. Governor Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley also delivered written testimony in support of the bill. Many legislators and Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral testified in person. The Human Rights Campaign contributed $25,000 to the MTPC to support their lobbying and public education efforts. These funds allowed the organization to hire its first executive director, Gunner Scott. Unfortunately, the bill did not advance in this legislative session.
In the wake of last year’s legislative action defeating a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, MassEquality’s board of directors voted to expand the organization’s mission to include work on a full range of LGBT issues in Massachusetts and marriage equality and electoral work with existing LGBT organizations in other New England states. HRC Boston Steering Committee member David Wilson is Chair of the MassEquality Board of Directors.
Denise Simmons of Cambridge recently became the first African-American lesbian mayor in the United States. She was first elected to the Cambridge City Council in 2002, and was selected last year by her fellow councilors to be mayor.
Massachusetts recently took another step toward LGBT equality. In July, Gov. Deval Patrick signed legislation into law to repeal a 1913 law that prevented many out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts. The action followed a vote by the state House of Representatives and the state Senate to repeal the law. Same-sex couples from any state are now able to marry in Massachusetts, although their marriage may not be recognized by their home state.
HRC Endorsements in Massachusetts
U.S. Senate
- John Kerry (D-MA)
U.S. House of Representatives
- John W. Olver (D-MA-1)
- Richard E. Neal (D-MA-2)
- James P. McGovern (D-MA-3)
- Barney Frank (D-MA-4)
- Niki Tsongas (D-MA-5)
- John F. Tierney (D-MA-6)
- Edward J. Markey (D-MA-7)
- Michael Capuano (D-MA-8)
- Stephen Lynch (D-MA-9)
- William Delahunt (D-MA-10)
Vote
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In Your Area
To find out more about HRC’s work in Massachusetts or to volunteer, contact our Boston steering committee at http://boston.hrc.org/.
HRC works with Mass Equality, the state LGBT advocacy organization, to advance equality for LGBT residents of Massachusetts. For more information about Mass Equality, please visit: http://www.massequality.org/.
