Romney won't back deal on gay unions

BOSTON — Gov. Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he does not support a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would allow civil unions between couples of the same sex. He said the question of civil unions was better left to the Legislature to deal with in a regular session.

Romney said he would support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. But he said at a news conference that to include civil unions in that amendment, as state lawmakers proposed on Tuesday, "goes too far."

The governor said he thinks that to deal with civil unions is basically creating a new law, whereas defining marriage as a heterosexual institution is merely codifying existing practice.

Romney was responding to what state legislators have called a compromise seeking to counteract last week's court decision allowing gay couples to marry in Massachusetts.

The proposed amendment to the state constitution would define marriage as a heterosexual institution but allow same-sex couples to join in civil unions.

The compromise was developed as legislators prepared for what is likely to be a divisive constitutional convention that began on Wednesday and is expected to be dominated by the gay marriage question.

The convention had been on the calendar for months, but the push for a marriage amendment received new momentum with a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, the state's highest court, last week, essentially ordering that Massachusetts begin granting marriage licenses to gay couples starting on May 17.

No matter what happens during the convention, the constitutional amendment could not take effect until the end of 2006 at the earliest.