Massachusetts OKs gay-marriage ban

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Legislature approved a state constitutional amendment on Monday that would ban gay marriage and create same-sex civil unions instead.

The development promised to add to a pitched battle in a state that is under court order to allow same-sex couples to marry, beginning May 17. Massachusetts would be the nation's first state to do so.

By itself, the 105-92 vote on Monday cannot prevent those marriages: The amendment can take effect no earlier than November 2006, because it requires further passage in the 2005-6 legislative session and then in a public referendum.

But immediately after the lawmakers' decision, Gov. Mitt Romney, a first-term Republican who opposes both gay marriage and same-sex civil unions, said he would ask the state's highest court to issue a stay of its ruling last November requiring the state to issue marriage licenses to gays. The stay would bar same-sex couples from marrying until after the proposed constitutional amendment could go before the voters.

Legal scholars have said it is unlikely that the court would agree to delay the effect of its ruling. But in a statement, Romney said: "The legislature has now passed an amendment in opposition to the court's decision, creating a conflict between the two branches. Given this conflict, I believe the Supreme Judycial Court should delay the imposition of its decision until the people have a chance to be heard."

"If we begin providing for same-sex marriages on May 17, as ordered by the court," Romney added, "and then our citizens choose to limit marriage to a man and woman by their vote in November 2006, we will have created a good deal of confusion during the period in between — for the couples involved, for our state, for other states where couples may have moved and for the children of these families."

The amendment does not indicate what would happen to those gay couples who wed in the two and a half years between May 17 and the earliest date the amendment could take effect. But its backers say their intent is that those marriages would become civil unions.