The Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, a Massachusetts interfaith organization devoted to maintaining the right to same-sex marriage in our state, aims to get one thousand clergypersons to sign the Massachusetts Declaration of Religious Support for the Freedom of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. For faith traditions that do not have clergy, duly appointed lay leaders from a given congregation should sign. Deadline is May 9th, the earliest possible date of the Constitutional Convention at which the Massachusetts legislature could vote to send an anti-gay marriage amendment to a ballot vote.
If you know an eligible Massachusetts clergyperson or lay leader who should sign, send them to this page.
Thank you for writing right to same-sex marriage instead of the waffling marriage equality. As I’ve thought about this, it seems to me the best solution is to pull the government out of the marriage licensing business completely and instead let people contract among themselves, and Churches marry according to their beliefs. The only reason to license a marriage is to discriminate against some kinds of marriage and if society can’t agree on it, perhapes it’s best to pull the gov out of it completely.
Otherwise, we get these strange moments as Oak Park did back in the early 90s when it created a registry for same sex couples that qualified those with a partner working for the Village to receive health insurance. It was largely symbolic except for the employee who tried to register her Adult and Disabled Child as a domestic partner and really needed the insurance. She was discriminated from the registry. People defended that saying the US needed National Health insurance instead. That was the real problem, not that this woman should have been allowed to claim her child as partner. That seemed a unsatisfying defense to me.