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TALKING POLITICS
Finneran supports anti-gay bill

BY SETH GITELL

On Monday, May 7, House Speaker Tom Finneran met with a key opponent of gay marriage; on Wednesday, the Associated Press quoted Finneran as saying that marriage between heterosexuals “is an institution that should be revered.”

Bryan Rudnick, executive director of the Massachusetts Citizens Alliance, told the Phoenix that during their 15-minute meeting, Finneran expressed support for the so-called Protection of Marriage Bill, which would prohibit marriages between same-sex couples. (Finneran spokesman Charles Rassmussen confirmed that the meeting between the two was on the Speaker’s schedule May 7.)

Rudnick, who as of press time was planning to deliver about 22,000 petitions supporting the bill, added that Finneran expressed support for his group’s efforts to ban marriages for gay and lesbian couples in the Bay State.

“He said, ‘This is wonderful,’” Rudnick notes. “He told us we were doing a good job — keep-up-the-good-work kind of thing. He said, ‘I look forward to seeing the petitions on Wednesday.’”

Rudnick says he pressed Finneran for a commitment to get the bill out of committee and up for a full House vote. Finneran was noncommittal, however, saying only that “maybe we can see something this summer, but it’s a long two-year session.”

Finneran’s public support for the anti-gay measure, filed by Representative John Rogers of Norwood, seemed to take the House’s two openly gay reps by surprise. “The Speaker has expressed to me his lack of interest in this bill,” says Representative Jarrett Barrios of Cambridge. “The Speaker has thus far been a man of his word on this issue and I would be very disappointed — and fair-minded citizens of Massachusetts would be rightfully angered — if he changed his tack on this hate-mongering legislation.”

Representative Liz Malia of Jamaica Plain describes the Protection of Marriage Bill as not “helpful at all,” adding: “We’ll see what happens when we get to the hearing. This is not inconsistent with where Tommy Finneran has been on the past on these issues.”

Issue Date: May 10 - 17, 2001






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