E-Mail This Article to a Friend The ConCon game (continued)

Romney’s influence. Although it’s unclear just how much sway Governor Mitt Romney has with Republican legislators — particularly in the Senate, where minority leader Brian Lees of East Longmeadow has been heavily involved in crafting a civil-union compromise bill — he did lobby card-carrying members of the party for Finneran’s surprise amendment on February 11. That measure failed by just two votes, which was the closest vote of the ConCon to date.

Today, it’s believed that the governor, who opposes civil unions if they provide the same benefits as marriage (Romney has yet to explain which benefits he thinks should be denied to gay couples) is rounding up Republicans to back an amendment proposed by State Representative Paul Loscocco, a Holliston Republican, which would ban gay marriage and establish civil unions. The measure offers one crucial distinction from its Travaglini-Finneran counterpart: it would allow the legislature to redefine what, exactly, a civil union is "from time to time." That means legislators could refuse to pass a civil-union statute for same-sex couples. Or they could decide the definition equals any two people dependent upon each other — last week, for example, Loscocco told the MetroWest Daily News editorial board that his current amendment would apply to more than gay and lesbian relationships. For instance, it could allow a granddaughter to cover her dependent grandmother on her health plan, provided they live together. (It is interesting how social conservatives always seem to bring up the concerns of dependent grandmothers, aunts, and other family members when the rights of gay couples are up for debate.)

What will the purists do? At last month’s ConCon, 23 representatives and senators shot down all three proposed amendments. Call them the purists. They believe that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recognized a right to marry for gay and lesbian couples, and that civil rights cannot be negotiated. And their number exceeds 23. Many more representatives and senators likely would have rejected the three measures if not for a strategy devised on the fly by the pro-gay forces: vote for an amendment put forth by Travaglini and Lees in an attempt to strike down something worse. Gay-rights advocates and legislative allies held firm against the Travaglini-Lees measure, which would have banned gay marriage but guaranteed civil unions, until an amendment similar to Loscocco’s began circulating on the floor. At the last minute on February 11, advocates urged allies to support the Travaglini-Lees measure in the hopes of ending the convention, and then killing it later.

Legislators like Representative Ellen Story of Amherst, and Senators Jarrett Barrios of Cambridge and Dianne Wilkerson of Roxbury, among others, are clearly against amending the state constitution to restrict rights, yet they voted in favor of the Travaglini-Lees amendment. Many who went along with the last-minute strategy have come to regret it and aren’t likely to vote this way again.

Conventional wisdom says they will vote against anything that takes away people’s rights, even if it allows for civil unions. But will they? If a consensus seems to be gathering around an amendment that would leave same-sex couples with nothing, some of the purists might defect to support a compromise bill.

What will the majority do? Make no mistake — a majority of legislators remains stunned by the SJC decision granting a constitutional right to marry to gay and lesbian couples. After all, the concept of a civil-union law hadn’t even been on the table for discussion at the State House before last November, let alone civil-marriage rights. So most legislators — understandably — regard civil unions as a real step toward equality.

Hard as it may be to believe, a good number from this group don’t actually care what happens. They haven’t staked out an ideological position one way or the other. All they really want is to put this politically divisive debate behind them so they can get on with equally pressing business, such as the $23 billion budget proposed for next fiscal year. State Representative David Flynn, a Bridgewater Democrat, could fit into this category: he has said that he wants to put something — anything! — on the ballot to appease the 71 percent of Massachusetts residents who recent polling data have shown favor a ballot question on the issue. Flynn, along with 12 of his colleagues, voted in favor of all three amendments last time around.

There is some thinking that a majority of legislators has developed such a case of gay-marriage fatigue that they’ll vote for whatever amendment hits the floor first on March 11. There’s even talk of drafting a "positive" amendment that would, say, specify civil marriage as a right for all Massachusetts citizens under state law, regardless of sexual orientation. The point? Give the moderate majority an opportunity to put a proposal on the ballot that doesn’t thwart the SJC decision.

WILL THE MARCH 11 ConCon bring another Finneran surprise? Will the pro-gay-marriage forces win out? Who knows? Suffice it to say, every day brings a lot of jockeying over which amendment will be proposed first. And we’ll find out which camp jockeyed the hardest and the fastest next Thursday.

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com