Couple plays hardball against marriage foes
By Margery Eagan, Boston Herald | September 8, 2005
So this is hardball?
"Exactly."
So said gay activist Tom Lang yesterday after Tom Reilly certified a gay marriage ballot question, allowing anti-gay crusaders to begin collecting signatures to put the question before voters.
Lang's "hardball:" to post on a new Web site, KnowThyNeighbor.org, the name, street address, hometown and ZIP code of everyone who signs the petition.
That way anyone who cares, say, gay men, women and their families, can know who their opponents are and where they live. They can call petition signers, pop by and chat up signers, or embarrass signers by introducing themselves at swish neighborhood soirees (more on that below). They can even picket signers' homes or boycott signers' businesses, though no one involved with KhowThyNeighbor.org says such in-your-face-antics are their first choice.
But there is something delicious about the image of lovey-dovey newylwed gays picketing - peacefully and decorously, of course - The New Life Sports Ministry coed volleyball match or the Mom-to-Mom Biblically based parenting classes, both organized by one of the first 30 petition signers. That's Alana Stubblebine, Lincoln, by the way.
The tragedy of Katrina has made me particularly hostile this week to all this Praise the Lord stuff smothering politics. With all our huge national problems, why waste one second debating . . . evolution in the schools?
But I digress.
Other first signers include former Mayor Ray Flynn, Kris Mineau of the Coalition for Marriage and Family, Catholic activist Philip Moran, black ministerial alliance member Gilbert Thompson and Dover Selectwoman Kathleen Weld. Any relation to our ex-governor William just-can't-love-those-gays-enough Weld? Not sure. She didn't call back.
But our first lady Mrs. Romney, who signed the first no-gay-marriage petition, has not signed this one, at least not yet.
Says Lang, "Everyone's scrambling to know who in their town would sign this. And this Web site will give gay people the tools to know, to defend themselves and their families, to let them go neighbor-to-neighbor and say, `I don't appreciate your signing this.' "
"I'm going to be aggressive personally," he said. "I want to know that the people I do business with are not against (gay marriage). This is going to be won by economics."
Tom Lang and his lawfully wedded husband, Alex Westerhoff, do indeed travel in a monied set. In a black-tie ceremony filled with heavily jeweled North Shore socialites and young marrieds, Lang married Westerhoff a year ago May, the first day gay marriage was legal here. Harvard heavyweight the Rev. Peter J. Gomes presided. A proclamation of congratulation was signed by former House Speaker Tom Finneran, long a gay marriage opponent.
A few weeks back Westerhoff, at the aforementioned swish soiree, introduced himself as Lang's better half to Madelyn Shields of Beverly Farms, another of the first 30 petition signers. Lang said Shields was so stunned to meet the notorious Alex, "she took three steps back into the food table."
"Totally untrue," said Shields yesterday. "Oh goodness, I was sitting down when he came up to me. I didn't know who he was . . . it was a little bit odd. But we were both very gracious."
Asked if it concerns her that her name, adress, town and ZIP code is now on a Web site available to anyone who vehemently opposes her point of view, Shields said, "I have a number of gay friends and I treat people the same regardless, but that does not change my position of what I believe marriage is."
"I certainly don't want to confront people. I would hope that any exchanges would be as gracious as the one between me and Alex."
And I guess we'll see.
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