Mass Family Institute is down, but is it out?

By most visible measures the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), which just two years ago was well positioned to place a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on this year's ballot, is at a low point in its influence on Bay State politics. Its amendment campaign failed in 2007, and last summer it stood powerless as the House and Senate pushed through a repeal of the 1913 law, clearing the way for out-of-state same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts. And despite MFI's efforts to elect social conservatives to the legislature this fall, groups like MassEquality were able to increase the number of same-sex marriage supporters in the 200-member legislature from 151 to 158. National allies on the religious right, such as MFI's parent organization Focus on the Family and its spin-off, Family Research Council, spent thousands of dollars in prior years to fund MFI's marriage amendment campaign, but they appear to have largely withdrawn from their involvement in Massachusetts in 2008.

Yet MFI President Kris Mineau said the future looks bright for his organization and the social conservative movement in Massachusetts.

"I believe the outlook for MFI is very positive, because as we say in the fighter pilot business, this is a target-rich environment," said Mineau, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force.

He said MFI is open to pushing for another marriage amendment in the future if it becomes viable. In the meantime the organization will press forward lobbying on a range of issues including opposition to abortion, casino gambling, pornography and comprehensive sex education. MFI's top priority in the upcoming session is defeating a bill to amend the state's hate crimes and non-discrimination laws to add gender identity and expression protections. The bill was first filed in the current session and died in committee.

LGBT advocates differ on how much of a credible threat MFI poses to marriage equality and other LGBT rights. Marc Solomon, executive director of MassEquality, said that he does not "write off their efforts," but he said their strength has greatly diminished over the past several years, particularly since the defeat of the 2007 marriage amendment.

"I think when [Gov. Mitt] Romney was in office they had a real power base to operate out of. On several occasions I remember seeing [Mineau's predecessor] Ron Crews making copies in the governor's office. They were working hand in hand. ... And prior to that when Tom Finneran was speaker they had a power base," said Solomon. "I think they have lost their bases of power and so there's no question their power, effectiveness is diminished."

Never mind that Romney and Finneran were both succeeded by two stalwart friends of the LGBT community, Deval Patrick and Sal DiMasi, who have been instrumental in defeating many of MFI's initiatives. On top of those losses, they also lost the two lawmakers who did most of their heavy lifting on Beacon Hill: former state Reps. Phil Travis (D-Rehoboth), who retired in early 2007, and Marie Parente (D-Milford), who lost a 2006 Democratic primary to a pro-equality challenger.

As an indicator of MFI's diminished clout, Solomon pointed to the organization's failure to increase the block of anti-equality lawmakers in this fall's elections.

"I also think that strength and effectiveness is about delivering what you say you're going to deliver. They decided not to do a new initiative petition last year and focus on changing the composition of the legislature, and they were not successful in doing that," said Solomon.

Not all advocates are convinced that MFI is on the ropes. Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said she worries that, particularly after the passage of Proposition 8 in California, the religious right both locally and nationally are likely to refocus their efforts on rolling back marriage equality and LGBT rights in Massachusetts.

"With the passage of Prop 8 in a state that so many viewed as gay friendly, it has unfortunately reinvigorated and re-energized our opponents. The way I describe it to people is they tasted blood in California and they want more. And now they are feeling more hopeful that if they could win in California, they can win in other pro-gay states, and we believe they are going to retrain their eyes on Massachusetts," said Isaacson.

MFI's glory days

Up until the defeat of the marriage amendment in June 2007 there was no question that MFI was a formidable force on Beacon Hill. In its efforts to pass a marriage amendment the organization built a powerful coalition that included the state's four Catholic bishops and the denomination's Bay State lobbying arm, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference; Catholic Citizenship, a grassroots Catholic organization that benefited from the star power of its founder, former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn; powerful clergy from communities of color, including Bishop Gilbert Thompson, president of the Black Ministerial Alliance, and Roberto Miranda, pastor of Roxbury's Hispanic evangelical Congregation Lion of Judah; and Romney, who used the marriage issue to bolster his image as a social conservative in preparation for his presidential run. At a series of constitutional conventions from 2004 through 2007 MFI's coalition bused in large, diverse crowds of protestors who lobbied lawmakers and stood outside the Statehouse holding "Let the People Vote" signs.

MFI and its allies showed they could do more than get big crowds to Beacon Hill. When marriage equality advocates outmaneuvered them in 2004 and attached a civil union provision to their marriage amendment, the coalition came back in 2005, re-branding itself VoteOnMarriage.org and collecting signatures to place a new marriage amendment on the ballot. When the legislature tried to kill that amendment procedurally MFI and its allies worked with Romney and filed suit with the Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled that lawmakers were shirking their duty by not taking a vote. In January 2007 the legislature voted to send the amendment to the ballot, the first of two votes needed to do so.

Yet by June 2007 the balance of power shifted dramatically. Romney had been replaced by Patrick, and Senate President Robert Travaglini, another same-sex marriage opponent, was succeeded by Therese Murray, a strong supporter. Patrick and Murray, working with DiMasi, lobbied their colleagues and peeled off enough votes to defeat the amendment. Mineau told the press after the loss that MFI would not file a petition for a new amendment for 2010 because the composition of the legislature was not likely to change dramatically before that point.

Mineau told Bay Windows that unless they are able to build back up the 50 votes in the legislature needed to send a citizen petition amendment to the ballot, the marriage amendment will not be viable.

"We're going to have to have the votes in the legislature. Unfortunately Massachusetts is the only state in the union that requires a citizen's petition to go through two votes in the legislature," said Mineau. "The bottleneck is the legislature, and that's what we'll have to deal with. We'll be taking a look at the new session and seeing what our options are."

MFI draws blood during elections

One of the ways MFI is working to restore its 50-vote bloc of marriage amendment supporters is through electoral work. Under the guise of two different spin-off organizations - the Massachusetts Independent PAC for Working Families (MIPAC/WF) and the Coalition for Marriage and Family - MFI devoted about $40,000 in 2008 in money and resources to try to elect 18 new socially conservative candidates to the legislature and keep social conservative incumbents in place. On the surface their electoral efforts pale in comparison to MassEquality, which spent more than $200,000 in the 2008 election cycle, mostly on polling and direct mail, but it is possible that MFI spent more money than indicated in campaign finance records; the organization may have skirted reporting regulations by sending issue mailings, which merely highlight a candidate's stance on issues, instead of mailings that endorse the candidate. MFI ultimately lost ground in the 2008 elections as the pro-equality majority swelled to 158 votes, but the organization did succeed in electing two new social conservatives to the legislature. MIPAC/WF, along with Mineau and several MFI board members and their spouses, poured money into Jim Dwyer's primary challenge to pro-equality state Rep. Patrick Natale (D-Woburn) and succeeded in unseating him, the first time opponents of same-sex marriage have knocked out a marriage equality supporter. They also supported Dennis Rosa's successful campaign to replace pro-equality Leominster state Rep. Jennifer Flanagan after she vacated her seat for her successful Senate bid.

Isaacson said that Natale's loss represented a major blow to the LGBT community. Prior to the 2008 primaries advocates could reassure lawmakers of their perfect streak of reelecting pro-equality lawmakers, a powerful argument for lawmakers worried that a vote for marriage equality would cause a backlash in their districts. Natale's defeat, combined with state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's defeat by pro-equality primary challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz, means advocates can no longer make that guarantee.

"Our ability to assert that and maintain that between 2002 and 2007 made a significant difference in our ability to win votes. The fact that we can no longer say that is a huge loss for us," said Isaacson.

Mineau indicated that MFI has confirmation that a third new lawmaker, Michael Brady, who won the race for the Brockton House seat vacated by Thomas Kennedy, also supports many of MFI's positions. Brady did not return a call to comment for this story, and Bay Windows was unable to verify independently Brady's positions on LGBT issues.

"We're very much encouraged by the victories of Jim Dwyer, Dennis Rosa, Mike Brady. They replaced candidates who didn't share our values," said Mineau.

While MFI succeeded in breaking the winning streak of LGBT advocates, it failed to deliver on one of its own promises. A week after lawmakers voted down the marriage amendment Mineau told the Boston Globe that MFI and its allies would be working to unseat four legislators who originally supported the marriage amendment but switched their votes to the pro-equality side at the last constitutional convention: freshman Democrat Reps. Geraldo Alicea (Charlton) and Angelo Puppolo (Wilbraham) and Republican Reps. Richard Ross (Wrentham) and Paul Loscocco (Holliston); Loscocco did not seek re-election.

Of the three remaining targets, MFI only succeeded in getting a challenger on the ballot in Alicea's race, Republican Ronald Chernisky, who lost on Election Day. An independent challenger to Ross, Thomas Roache, also lost; he did not receive support from MFI.

Alicea, who ran in 2006 as a supporter of the amendment before switching his vote, said MFI and its allies were a major force in Chernisky's campaign. A survey of campaign records from the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance shows that MIPAC/WF, the Coalition for Marriage and Family, and board members and major donors to those organizations donated more than $5000 to Chernisky's campaign. Mineau and Chanel Prunier, campaign director for the Coalition for Marriage, also donated.

"I did four mailings. He did 14 mailings. There was a lot of money put into his race, and if you look at it, it wasn't from the Republican Party," said Alicea. "It was more from the special interests. And it's hard to say where the money came from, but if you saw the mail pieces it was all negative attacks, and a lot of it was on marriage."

Despite MFI's backing, Alicea won handily on Election Day, garnering 60 percent of the vote.

Puppolo had good reason to worry that he would face an MFI-backed challenger in the fall. Last September another anti-gay group, the National Organization for Marriage, placed a billboard in Puppolo's district with a photo of Puppolo alongside pictures of Judas and Benedict Arnold. Yet MFI's candidate to unseat Puppolo, Republican Richard Howell, did not qualify for the ballot after he failed to file a required ethics report with the state by the deadline.

"They were actively engaged in trying to recruit candidates," said Puppolo, "and at the end of the day I tried to work hard on behalf of my constituents."

Still a force?

MFI's record inside the Statehouse since the defeat of the marriage amendment is decidedly mixed. This past July, as lawmakers were gearing up to repeal the 1913 law, MFI and the Catholic Church joined together to try to block those efforts. The state's four bishops issued a statement to lawmakers warning that allowing out-of-staters to marry in Massachusetts would further erode the traditional definition of marriage. Their efforts had seemingly no effect on the repeal campaign. In the Senate the 1913 repeal bill passed by a unanimous voice vote, and none of MFI's Senate allies raised an objection.

"It was a stacked deck. Everyone knew that bill was going to pass. There was no stopping it, and that wasn't the place where these people wanted to stick their flag in the sand, so to speak," said Isaacson.

In the House there was more resistance to voting on the 1913 repeal, with several lawmakers telling the media that the timing of the vote could hurt them in the elections, but the House voted on July 29, and the repeal bill passed by a landslide 118-35 margin. Even some stalwart supporters of the marriage amendment, such as Medford Rep. Paul Donato (D) and Sandwich Rep. Jeffrey Perry (R), both of whom received MIPAC/WF donations in the last two years, jumped ship and supported the 1913 law repeal. Solomon said MFI's efforts to defeat the bill failed to win over lawmakers.

"[Mineau] was right, there were some people who didn't want to vote on it in the House ... but when push came to shove and the Speaker called for a vote, the vote was overwhelming," said Solomon.

MFI's efforts to defeat the transgender rights bill have been more successful. In the run-up to the hearing on the bill before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary last March MFI released a statement claiming the bill would put women and children at risk by permitting men to enter women's bathroom and locker room facilities. MFI and the Coalition for Marriage rallied their grassroots supporters by sending out action alerts about the hearing, and Mineau during the hearing reiterated his argument about the threat to women and children. The bill died in committee this session, and Isaacson said MFI's lobbying helped kill the bill.

"I think they absolutely hurt us, hurt our efforts. However, we didn't anticipate winning in the first go-round. But they did us damage, and they will again, and we're going to have to work even harder in the future to move that bill along," said Isaacson.

Solomon said MFI appealed to fear, and he said that remains a potent strategy.

"It's an obstacle, but it's certainly not an insurmountable obstacle. ... Unfortunately our opponents rely on fear and not the facts, and emotions can trump facts, so what we need to do is replicate in a much smaller way what we did with the marriage campaign, which is to have transgender people and their families tell the truth about their experience being transgender or about being parents of a child who does not belong to the gender he was born into," said Solomon.

How much clout?

Even though MFI failed to unseat him, Alicea still considers it a powerful force on Beacon Hill. He said in the run-up to the June 2007 ConCon, once MFI got word that Alicea might change his vote, the organization exerted tremendous pressure on him to maintain his support for the amendment. He said MFI lobbyist Evelyn Reilly met with him four times between March and the June vote, and the organization recruited grassroots supporters in his district to lobby him in person.

"There were some very active members in my community who met with me for several hours at different times, especially in local parishes, and took the liberty to sit down with me as well to talk about the marriage issue," said Alicea. "From January to June [MFI] were very persistent, and they were very strong in reaching out to their other members throughout the district, who called to schedule time to meet with me."

The day of the ConCon, as Alicea was driving into Boston, he said his predecessor, Mark Carron, who worked closely with MFI during the 2004 ConCons, called to urge him to vote for the amendment. He said the arguments of pro-equality constituents in his district proved more persuasive, but MFI flexed some impressive lobbying muscles.

Alicea said MFI still enjoys a visible profile among lawmakers.

"There's still respect for Kris and for Miss Reilly. They're seen at the State House a lot. People still respect them," said Alicea. "There'll be different lobbying groups that many people wouldn't recognize, but when you say the Family Institute, everyone recognizes them."

One of the ways MFI maintained its profile was by partnering with a broad coalition of groups from across the ideological spectrum and with DiMasi this year to lobby against Patrick's proposal to bring casino gambling to Massachusetts. Diane Jeffrey, president of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, another member of the coalition, said MFI lobbied against the bill among the legislature's conservative members.

"We also coordinated our lobby efforts at the State House and worked with them to target many different legislators, some that the League was focused on and some that others would focus on," said Jeffrey. She said she did not know how effective MFI was at swaying its targeted lawmakers, but she said the overall coalition effort was effective.

Isaacson said MFI's decision to join the gambling coalition helped their image on Beacon Hill.

"It was a clever move by them to join the ranks to try and appear more mainstream than they had before. It was very smart political positioning by them, and it didn't go unnoticed," said Isaacson.

MFI has also worked to maintain a high profile among the state's conservative movement, both through organizational networks and the conservative blogosphere (see "MFI maintains profile among Bay State conservatives," page 31).

Mineau said MFI is working to find issues where they have common ground with lawmakers who may have opposed them on the marriage amendment. He said he expects to find many lawmakers who will support them on issues around abortion, gambling, and parents' rights, among other issues.

"We have to look at the whole picture," said Mineau.

Whither Dobson?

As the Proposition 8 campaign in California made clear, one of the most important variables in anti-gay amendment campaigns is money. Much of the money for these campaigns has come from socially conservative religious denominations like the Mormon Church and conservative Christian advocacy groups like Focus on the Family. From 2003 to 2007 groups like Focus on the Family and Family Research Council (FRC) devoted considerable resources to aiding MFI and its allies. In 2003 and 2004 Focus spent more than $138,000 lobbying the Massachusetts legislature, according to state lobbying records, and during the 2004 ConCons FRC president Tony Perkins and other FRC staff joined MFI in the Statehouse to lobby and plan strategy.

Those organizations stepped up their involvement once MFI launched its VoteOnMarriage petition campaign in 2005. Between 2006 and 2007 Focus on the Family donated $90,000 to VoteOnMarriage. FRC held a nationally televised forum in October 2006 in Boston called Liberty Sunday, hosted by Perkins and featuring a televised address from Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, one of the most powerful advocates on the Christian Right.

Yet since the 2007 amendment defeat the national anti-gay groups have kept a low profile in Massachusetts; there are no visible signs they have been providing financial or organizational support to MFI. Pam Chamberlain, a researcher for the Somerville-based think tank Political Research Associates who focuses on monitoring anti-LGBT activism, said that groups like Focus on the Family are unlikely to sink money into Massachusetts while pro-equality politicians have a lock on political power. She cited news reports of Focus on the Family laying off workers as a result of the money they spent on the Prop 8 campaign.

"There's always going to be some local groups that are concerned about same-sex marriage and abortion as the two issues that are the best hot button issues for mobilizing at the grassroots, but nationally I think people in the religious right are being cautious about where they put their funds," said Chamberlain. "Unless there's a fight they're not going to jump in the ring."

Yet it's not impossible to imagine the Bay State political climate shifting. Numerous media reports have detailed the jockeying between DiMasi deputies John Rogers and Robert DeLeo to succeed the Speaker - who is currently the subject of an Ethics Commission investigation - should he step down. While both lawmakers support marriage equality, they each originally opposed marriage rights for same-sex couples, and there is no guarantee they will use as much political capital on behalf of LGBT rights as DiMasi, who has a decades-long record of support for such issues. If Murray should retire from the Senate one of her likely successors as Senate President, Ways and Means Chair Steven Panagiotakos, is a longtime opponent of marriage equality. And if Patrick should be appointed to a position in the administration of his longtime friend President-Elect Barack Obama, it is possible a conservative challenger could run for the corner office in 2010.

Isaacson said she worries that national groups like Focus on the Family have been emboldened by their Prop 8 win and have their sights set on Massachusetts.

"I don't mean to suggest that the Huns are at the door, but we do mean to suggest that A), they're coming, and B), they're planning their attack, and C), we should never make the mistake of underestimating them," said Isaacson.

Mineau said he fully expects Focus on the Family and FRC to help them in future campaigns.

"We've been working with Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council for our entire 17 years of existence, so nothing has changed in that relationship or the availability of their resources. But certainly in 2008 the battlegrounds were Florida, Arizona and of course California," said Mineau.

"But we will have opportunities in the future, and by no means has Massachusetts gone off the radar on the national scene, because it still is a key battleground state on a number of issues."