“Celebration, then strategizing in Calif. Gays look to Mass. in battle to keep marriage rights”
Michael Levenson offers a preview of the battle over California’s marriage amendment in the Boston Globe. He writes:
. . . “In Massachusetts, the sky didn’t fall in,” and “the institution of marriage didn’t end,” for heterosexual couples, Newsom said yesterday in a telephone interview. “We have a good chance” of defeating the amendment, he said, but “it’s going to be a tough campaign.”
In Massachusetts, gay-rights activists persuaded some opponents of same-sex marriage in the Legislature to change their minds by talking to the lawmakers one-on-one about their lives. Activists here said they planned to mount a similar campaign on a broader scale, by going door to door to talk to voters in more conservative communities across California.
“What we’ve seen in the example of Massachusetts is personalize, personalize, personalize,” said Stuart Gaffney, 45, who, with his partner, John Lewis, was a plaintiff in the California case . . .