State lawmakers coerced into derailing marriage amendment, says Mass. activist

State lawmakers coerced into derailing marriage amendment, says Mass. activist

A Massachusetts pro-family leader says homosexual activists "brought in the big guns" to lobby enough state representatives to prevent citizens from voting on a marriage amendment.

Massachusetts lawmakers have blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that would have let voters decide whether to ban same-sex marriage in the only state that allows it. The proposal, which sought to change the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriage, needed 50 votes to advance to the 2008 statewide ballot. It received only 45, with 151 lawmakers opposed.

Brian Camenker, director of the pro-family group Mass Resistance, says he finds it "bizarre and insane" that more than three-quarters of the Massachusetts legislature wants homosexual "marriage." That includes, he says, a group of traditionally conservative state representatives who he says were pressured into voting against the amendment.

"What's even more unbelievable is that in 24 hours, a dozen -- that's 12 pro-family [representatives] -- caved in, sold out, and switched their vote," he laments. "So, in other words, we needed 50 votes. We had something like 57 [in an earlier vote], and we ended up with 45."

Camenker says Governor Deval Patrick and homosexual activists, as well as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were "threatening and twisting the arms" of lawmakers to change their minds and oppose the measure. "Quite a bit" of that arm-twisting, he believes, came from Governor Patrick, but also involved "other national people in the Democratic Party" besides Pelosi.

According to Camenker, the homosexual movement spent three-quarters of a million dollars on television and radio ads in the past few days.