E-Mail This Article to a Friend It's marriage! The state's high court says civil unions won't do. What will the legislature do? BY SUSAN RYAN-VOLLMAR

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2004 -- The Tom Reillys, Mitt Romneys, and Tom Finnerans of the world now have a clear choice before them. As Mary Bonauto, the civil-rights project director of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), put it at a Wednesday press conference after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a civil unions bill would not meet the standards set forth in its finding last year that same-sex couples have a Constitutional right to wed: "People need to look inside themselves and determine whether they support equality or not."

There are thousands of gay- and lesbian-headed families around the Commonwealth, many of which include children, added Bonauto. Politicians considering legislative action to pass a state Constitutional amendment banning lesbian and gay couples from marrying need to decide "whether [they] want to go out of the way to make life harder for these people."

On November 18, the SJC issued a strongly-worded decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health finding that the current ban on marriages of same-sex couples was unconstitutional. The court stayed the decision for 180 days in order to "take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion." Many, including Attorney General Tom Reilly and Governor Mitt Romney, interpreted that language to mean that the court was open to a civil unions law from the legislature. Senate President Robert Travaglini sent a civil unions bill to the SJC for consideration. On Wednesday, the SJC ruled that the only way to meet the November ruling was to issue marriage licenses to lesbian and gay couples.

It's now clear that the SJC intended for the legislature to amend the approximately 500 provisions of state law that refer to marriage and make them inclusive of same-sex couples. Current marriage licenses, for instance, include one line for the bride and one line for the groom. To date, no legislation has been filed to amend these laws.

State representative Philip Travis of Rehobeth, however, has filed a bill to amend the state constitution limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman. The full legislature is set to meet for a Constitutional Convention next Wednesday, February 11, to consider the bill. In order to amend the Massachusetts Constitution the legislature must pass the amendment by a majority vote in two successive sessions. The amendment would then be put before voters. The earliest voters would see the question on a ballot is 2006. In the meantime, same-sex couples can get married in the Commonwealth beginning May 17.

Arline Isaacson, cochair of the Lesbian and Gay Political Caucus, which has been lobbying legislators to vote against the amendment, says she's not convinced that the SJC's latest ruling will prompt state reps and senators still struggling with how they'll vote on the amendment to vote it down. "Legislators are struggling with that issue personally as well as politically. But the radical right has generated so many anti-gay phone calls to the legislature that many legislators are worried, albeit wrongly, about supporting us."

Nevertheless, Bonauto -- who litigated the plaintiffs' case in Goodridge before the SJC in March -- says she's confident that if the question is put to voters, they will be used to the idea of married gay couples by then. Referring to the controversy raised after the Vermont legislature passed a civil unions bill, when opponents of the bill said it would irreparably harm the state, she said: "I even heard predictions of how the state was going to be consumed by fire."

That, obviously, didn't come to pass.

Adam Reilly contributed to this report.