January 1, 2008
Courage under fire
Michael Wood READ TIME: 4 MIN.
Rep. Geraldo Alicea (D-Charlton)
Rep. Christine Canavan (D-Brockton)
Sen. Gale Candaras (D-Wilbraham)
Rep. Paul Kujawski (D-Webster)
Rep. Paul Loscocco (R-Holliston)
Sen. Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy)
Rep. Robert Nyman (D-Hanover)
Rep. Angelo Puppolo (D- Springfield)
Rep. Richard Ross (R-Wrentham)
Rep. James Vallee (D-Franklin)
Rep. Brian Wallace (D-South Boston)
The 11 legislators who had an 11th hour change of heart on the anti-gay marriage amendment and thus secured its defeat on June 14 have been picketed, pilloried and crank-called by angry opponents of marriage equality. One of them, state Rep. Angelo Puppolo, has had his image slapped on a billboard in his district alongside Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot. And though they received plenty of encouragement, support and political cover from the likes of leaders like House Speaker Sal DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray and Gov. Deval Patrick, in the end it was their decision to push that red button or proclaim their "no" vote on their own.
Even DiMasi, who knows a few things about the workings of Beacon Hill, acknowledged the political risk inherent in changing a vote after already being recorded on an issue. Explaining why he worked so hard to kill the amendment procedurally last year, DiMasi said, "Once they did take that vote it was going to be so much more difficult to change it, and I knew that," he said.
The impact and import of their courage was not lost on the hundreds of LGBT people who watched as the votes were being cast on June 14. Exhibit A is the film (available at QuincyForMarriageEquality.com) of the crowd in Gardner Auditorium erupting in cheers when state Sen. Michael Morrissey, who had been the focus of an intense pro-equality lobbying effort in the months leading up to the last constitutional convention, voiced his "no" vote.
None of these legislators has publicly voiced regret over his or her vote. In fact, it seems just the opposite. For instance, Puppolo, a freshman Democrat who campaigned for office last year on his support for the amendment but changed his mind after meeting with constituents once in office, has said that as an indicator of what a ballot initiative campaign would have brought about, the ugliness he's encountered has only strengthened his belief that his vote to defeat the amendment was the right thing to do. Likewise, state Rep. Christine Canavan, a veteran legislator who consistently supported anti-equality amendments over the past three years, has said that her vote against the amendment in June was the one she had long wanted to cast, but fearing a backlash from her conservative constituency, she didn't. Ultimately, Canavan decided she had to vote her conscience. "It was the vote that really meant something, that would actually have initiated something good or bad," she told Bay Windows back in June, "and it was just very anguishing for me."
Two-term state Rep. Richard Ross called his evolution from supporting the amendment to embracing marriage equality, "the journey of a lifetime, really." Ross was among a handful of the 11 legislators who turned out for MassEquality's victory celebration on Dec. 5 at Boston's Cyclorama, where he spoke to Bay Windows>/i>.
"I've said that to many people," added the Wrentham Republican, who is also a funeral director. "I believe in serendipity and ... having a purpose and sometimes, when folks have challenged me that felt that I did the wrong thing, I said, 'Well, the thing I wrestle with from time to time is that maybe this was the one thing I was elected to do.' Who knows?
"Or on the other side of the coin, maybe I'm supposed to do even more with this issue as we move forward," he continued. "And I know one person who was vehemently opposed to the vote I took actually said, 'Oh God I hope not.' But you never know. Life is funny and you have to embrace the things that you're being led towards." Then, displaying a sense of humor not characteristically associated with funeral directors, he says with a laugh, "Go towards the light! Go towards the light!"
But in a more serious vein, Ross said his career at the funeral home, started by his father, helped guide his thinking on the marriage issue. It was a topic that Ross said surfaced during a meeting with Patrick Guerriero, a fellow Republican and openly gay former state legislator, with whom he met on the day before the vote. Ross says Guerriero essentially asked him whether sexual orientation is an issue for him when tending to the needs of the bereaved. "I said, 'Yeah, I deal with people from all walks of life. It doesn't matter if they're black or white, Catholic, Jew or Protestant or they happen to be gay. I said I only see them for their need and their emotion, that human need at the time. We work on meeting that need and deal with it together. ... It's just seeing people as people. And I think that kind of pushed me over the edge."
Like many legislators, Ross also said what helped to change his mind was meeting with gay and lesbian constituents. At one such meeting, one of Ross's supporters came out to him as a lesbian and told him she had gotten married. "She said, 'We're here to ask you a question: Why would you allow people on both sides of this issue' - and there is hate on both sides of this issue - 'to come in after she and I have been married, by the time you vote on it, maybe three, four, five years and pull us out for inspection and decide whether what we have is a real marriage and whether our kids can call us a real family? That's just wrong.' I said, 'You're right,'" Ross recalls. "So it was an evolutionary process, there's no doubt about it."
Michael Wood is a contributor and Editorial Assistant for EDGE Publications.
