PAIR VOWS TO OUT ANTI-GAY WED SIGNERS
By Maggie Mulvihill, Boston Herald | September 8, 2005
A pair of gay activists are raising the stakes in the fight over same-sex marriage, vowing to post on the Internet the name and address of anyone who signs a petition to ban gay marriage and civil unions in Massachusetts.
"I have the fight in me now, and if people I know, or that I support, or that I do business with are on that list, I might not support them or their philanthropies or their businesses," said Tom Lang, who launched knowthyneighbor.org with his spouse, Alex Westerhoff.
Lang, 42, said he and Westerhoff, 36, are only providing via the Internet public information that any citizen could obtain at the secretary of state's office. But anti-gay marriage activists are outraged.
"We think that it is intimidation by no other name," said Kristian Mineau, whose name was listed as one of the first 30 signers of the petition. Mineau said he will explore the rights of people who have signed or plan to sign the petition.
"Certainly it raises my concerns. This is the first I have heard of it," said Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.
Mineau and his wife are listed on the site, along with their address. Also listed: former Mayor Raymond L. Flynn; Dover Selectwoman Kathleen W. Weld and her husband, Walter Weld; and Richard W. Richardson, spokesman for the Black Ministerial Alliance.
Yesterday, the anti-gay marriage ballot measure passed another key legal hurdle when it was certified by Attorney General Tom Reilly.
If backers of the petition are to get the measure on the ballot, the next step is to get 65,825 signatures of registered voters. The necessary signatures must be turned in to Secretary of State William F. Galvin by Dec. 7 for the amendment to be placed on the 2008 ballot.
Galvin said posting the names of the signatories on the Web is legal. "That is fine. That is the American way if they want to do it," he said.
Lang said he was not advocating that gay marriage backers use the Web site as a method of intimidating the signers, but rather as a way to "open up communication" on both sides of the debate. "We are not telling people what to do. We are letting people become their own armchair activists," he said.
Marty Rouse, campaign director for the gay-rights group Mass Equality, said: "We have neither sanctioned nore encouraged this action. These are private citizens and these are private actions."
The volatile gay marriage debate promises, with Reilly's ruling yesterday, to become more inflamed in the next two years as the fight over the amendment ramps up.
Gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in May 2003 by the Supreme Judicial Court. The new ballot initiative would not only forbid that, but also ban civil unions. An amendment to the state constitution up for debate next week would allow such unions.
Reilly, who is running for governor, enraged gays by deciding to certify the petition even though he said he is personally opposed to it.
"Today Tom Reilly threw the entire gay community in front of the bus at the altar of his political aspirations," said Arline Isaacson, co-chair of the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. She said she could not comment on the Web site because she hasn't seen it.
Reilly held up the state constitution in saying his office interpreted state law to allow the petition forward. "The constitutional amendment to define marriage should not be excluded from a vote of the people of Massachusetts," he said.
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