Church recruits kids in gay marriage fight

By Marie Szaniszlo, Boston Herald | September 30, 2005

The church that argues that same-sex marriages would harm children has recruited them in its petition drive to get an initiative banning such unions on the 2008 ballot.

Copies of the petition are being sent home with every Catholic school student, said Larry Cirignano, executive director of catholicvote.org, which is coordinating the petition drive with the support of the state's four bishops.

"Teachers incorporated this into their civics lessons," Cirignano said yesterday. "Kids are actively involved in trying to get signatures."

But not all parents want their kids actively involved in the hot-button issue.

"It's not for their eyes," said Tina Fernandes, whose two 12-year-old boys attend Holy Cross School in the South End. "My boys are too young to have to deal with that."

The initiative's opponents agree.

"Schoolchildren are sent home with raffle tickets, holiday paper and permission slips," said Marc Solomon, political director of Mass Equality, the group leading the effort to preserve same-sex couples' right to marry. "Schools may make them salesmen. But they should not make them political solicitors."

Terrence C. Donilon, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, yesterday said he knew of no local school that had sent petitions home with students, but he could not say whether any plan to.

The archdiocese is launching a signature-gathering drive in churches Sunday.

In the Diocese of Fall River, Catholic school principals were asked to make the petitions available to students old enough to vote and to send them home with younger students, including those in elementary school, said John Kearns, the diocese's spokesman.

The dioceses of Worcester and Springfield did not return calls requesting comment.

At least 65,825 certified signatures are needed by Nov. 23 in order for the ballot initiative to go to the Legislature.

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