Lawmakers withdraw support for anti-gay proposal

A bill sponsored by the anti-gay group MassResistance to restrict discussion of LGBT issues in schools has lost the support of nearly half its co-sponsors after a campaign by the group KnowThyNeighbor.org and its supporters asking lawmakers to reject the bill. In an unexpected twist, some of the co-sponsors who withdrew told Bay Windows that their decision was not a change of heart; they claimed that they never agreed to co-sponsor the legislation in the first place, and they were uncertain how their name was added to the co-sponsor list to begin with.

Kevin Shea, chief of staff for Rep. Paul Donato (D-Medford), said Donato only learned his name was on the co-sponsor list for Senate Bill 321 after receiving a call from a constituent who opposed the bill.

"He discovered that when somebody said to him, what's with S.321, and he looked at it and said, this isn't what he discussed with anybody," said Shea. He said prior to the bill's filing Donato had met with supporters of MassResistance in his district who urged him to support the bill, but he made no commitment to support it. And while Donato, a supporter of the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, does not have a strong pro-gay voting record, Shea said after reading S.321 Donato has come out in opposition to the bill.

"He does not support that bill. It's a lot more than just a consent bill. It's beyond the pale," said Shea.

Indeed, the MassResistance bill goes much farther than the current state law allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education classes. It requires schools to obtain written permission from parents to include their children in any discussions of "alternative sexual behavior," which is defined to include anything even remotely associated with LGBT issues.

"The term 'alternative sexual behavior' means homosexuality, bisexuality, lesbianism, transsexuality, transgenderism, cross-dressing, pansexuality, promiscuity, sodomy, pederasty, prostitution, oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, polygamy, polyandry, sex re-assignment treatments, 'bondage and discipline,' sado-masochism, bestiality, and similar behaviors," reads the legislation. "It also includes issues and relationships deriving from those behaviors, including but not limited to 'sexual orientation,' and alternative family, parenting, and marriage constructs."

The bill received a hearing before the legislature's Joint Committee on Education May 29.

Sen. Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield), the top-ranking Republican in the Senate and a staunch opponent of the marriage amendment, said he was also surprised to find his name on the co-sponsor list. He said he only discovered his name attached to the bill when Donato contacted him about the legislation. He immediately contacted the Senate clerk to remove his name.

"It's not anything I would put my name on ... I think the bill obviously goes too far. It is anti-gay, and I don't think it will see the light of day out of that committee," said Tisei.

He speculated that his name and the names of other co-sponsors who withdrew their support may have originally been added as a result of a clerical error.

"There are 8000 bills that are all filed on the same day, and all of those bills have primary sponsors, and all of those sponsors try to get co-sponsors. And in the rush of things it seems that some names were put on inadvertently ... I think as legislators have become aware of it they've asked to have their names taken off," said Tisei.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Hingham), rejected the suggestion that the co-sponsors' names were added in error. He said his staff kept a tally sheet of all of the co-sponsors, and they were instructed to add to the list only lawmakers who either called his office directly or who had staff call from their State House offices. Hedlund said the State House caller ID system allows staff to verify that a call is coming from a specific lawmaker's office.

Asked how lawmakers' names got on the sponsor list seemingly without their knowledge, Hedlund said, "I'm not going to speculate about the internal workings of any other offices. I can only tell you our safeguards to make sure no names go on by mistake."

Hedlund said he asked his staff to be particularly careful recording co-sponsors for S.321 because it was a bill Hedlund filed on behalf of a constituent, Owen O'Malley of Cohasset. In Massachusetts, individual citizens have the right to introduce their own bills into the legislature, and as a courtesy Hedlund has a policy of filing any piece of legislation that a constituent asks him to file. He said bills filed on behalf of constituents contain language indicating that they are filed "by request," and Hedlund said as a matter of principle he files bills put forward by constituents regardless of his personal stance on the legislation.

As for whether he supports the MassResistance bill, Hedlund said he is unsure because he has not read the full text of the bill.

Not all co-sponsors of the bill who removed their names claim to have been placed on the list without their knowledge. Rep. Lewis Evangelidis (R-Holden) sent a statement to Bay Windows reading simply, "Upon a closer review of the bill, I believe it is inappropriate and I have asked to have my name removed."

Tom Lang, co-founder of KnowThyNeighbor, sent out an e-mail alert to supporters following the education committee hearing to urge them to contact the bill's co-sponsors.

Lang said he urged supporters to draw attention to S.321 to send the message that the anti-gay bigotry that motivates supporters of the MassResistance bill is the same driving force behind the marriage amendment. During the education committee hearing, Evelyn Reilly, public policy director for the Massachusetts Family Institute, which is the lead sponsor of the marriage amendment, did not specifically endorse S.321, but she called for restrictions on discussions of LGBT issues that mirrored the language of the bill. She claimed that a discussion in the classroom of same-sex marriage without explicit parental permission would be a violation of parents' rights.

But Lang described the bill as a "terrible statement" about antigay bigotry. "These groups like the Massachusetts Family Institute don't just want to get rid of gay marriage, they want to get rid of any reference to gays in our society," he said.