Right of gays to marry set for years to come
Vote keeps proposed ban off 2008 state ballot
By Frank Phillips and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | June 15, 2007
The Legislature, in a vote as swift as it was historic, reaffirmed the state's first-in-the-nation same-sex marriage ruling yesterday, unequivocally protecting the rights of gays and lesbians to wed in Massachusetts until at least 2012.

The vote followed 3 1/2 years of fierce arguments, emotional testimonies, and controversial legal decisions. It came on a day filled with cheering and jeering in the streets of Beacon Hill.

But when the hour arrived, there was neither debate nor delay. In a packed chamber, first senators and then House members cast their votes to reject a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage in Massachusetts as only a union between a man and a woman.

In the end, the proposed ban garnered only 45 votes, five short of what it needed to qualify for the 2008 statewide ballot and 17 fewer than it won during its first trip through the Legislature less than six months ago.

"In Massachusetts today, the freedom to marry is secure," Governor Deval Patrick told a cheering crowd of gay-marriage advocates after the results of the Constitutional Convention were announced. "Today's vote is not just a vote for marriage equality. It was a vote for equality itself."