E-Mail This Article to a Friend GOOD GROOMING Poll shows increased support for equal marriage BY DEIRDRE FULTON

As equal-marriage supporters gear up for their collective May 17 wedding anniversary, anti-gay activists continue trying to undermine same-sex-marriage rights. However, judging from a new poll released today by MassEquality’s Education Fund — which shows that a majority of Massachusetts voters support gay marriage — it doesn’t look like those efforts are getting very far. Even vocal opponents of equal marriage, who appeared in court this week to make yet another attempt to gut the law, have had to concede that.

On Monday, Catholic Action League of Massachusetts executive director C.J. Doyle appeared before the state’s Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), asking that body to put gay marriage on hold until citizens have the chance to vote — in 2006 — on a state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and establish civil unions. (He’s assuming, of course, that the amendment will get that far; legislators still have to approve the amendment a second time at this session’s Constitutional Convention.) But even Doyle’s lawyer admitted after the hearing that the justices seemed uninterested in taking away the rights they bestowed in the 2003 Goodridge decision. The SJC is expected to rule on the motion in the near future. Still, Doyle says that with gay marriages taking place all across the state (more than 5000 couples have tied the knot since last May 17), voters will be unable to make unbiased decisions at the ballot box.

Well, that’s kind of the point. Once Massachusetts voters see their neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family members getting married, most realize how good marriage is for same-sex couples — and just how little it affects everyone else. In fact, 48 percent of poll respondents (the random sample consisted of 600 completed interviews with registered voters from every part of the state) said gay marriage had no impact on the overall quality of life in Massachusetts, and 36 percent said life had actually gotten better. A full 82 percent said gay marriage has had either no impact or a positive one on heterosexual married couples.

For months, equal-rights advocates have been trying to put a human face on gay marriage, in local communities and on Beacon Hill. This latest poll, which was commissioned by the public-awareness arm of MassEquality, the largest gay-rights coalition in the state, indicates that the strategy is working. According to their study, there’s a clear link between a person’s support for gay marriage and his or her familiarity with gays or lesbians. Sixty-six percent of those who said they know a gay man or lesbian "very well" also support the right to marry; the split was more even among those who said they didn’t know a gay man or lesbian. Grassroots organizers and political lobbyists will no doubt use these results to rally gay — and straight — troops.

The unique thing about the poll — and what makes it different from polls in other states — is that "we’re operating in a world of experience, rather than myth or speculation," says Bob Meadow, who coordinated the poll. In other words, when 62 percent of Massachusetts voters say gay and lesbian couples have the right to enter into legal marriage (a slight uptick from 59 percent in 2003, just prior to the SJC’s historic Goodridge decision), they’re basing their answers on personal experience, not on either their own imaginings or the images (positive and negative) trotted out in the media.

In addition, 45 percent of voters say the Massachusetts courts are doing an excellent or good job (and another 34 percent rate them as "fair"), suggesting that right-wing cries of judicial misconduct are falling mostly on indifferent ears.

By the way, those super-vigilant "judicial-activism" watchdogs will have a much easier job from now on. They — and the rest of us — will be able to watch justices supposedly "legislating from the bench" via live webcast, courtesy of high-tech courthouse renovations and a partnership with Suffolk University Law School. A few hundred people (including this correspondent) tuned in on Monday. It wasn’t perfect, but it certainly was watchable, and much easier than traveling down to the Pemberton Square courthouse. Visit www.suffolk.edu/sjc to see for yourself.