Thousands of people showed up at Boston Common Sunday to hear a collection of anti-gay marriage speakers support a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
A sea of 2,000 people, many holding signs, stood in 20 degree weather to hear speakers -including Archbishop Sean O’Malley – make their case against gay marriage and the power of the four “unelected justices” of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court who ruled in November that the state constitution does not prohibit such marriages. The rally came on the eve of Wednesday’s constitutional convention, where the Legislature is set to consider an amendment to ban same-sex marriages.
“The understanding of marriage predates and precedes the authority of the state,” O’Malley said while reading from a statement signed by 3,000 religious leaders from various denominations across the country. “Four unelected justices overstepped their authority.”
Several speakers stressed legislators’ injustice in not listening to the people who oppose gay marriage while they pushed for the legalization of same-sex marriages.
Retired SJC Justice Joseph Nolan said the issue of gay marriage should not be decided by the judiciary.
“In the Massachusetts Constitution there is not a shred of evidence that approves of this,” Nolan said. “It’s not an economic issue. It’s not a political issue. It’s not a sociological issue. It’s a moral issue.”
He did not differentiate between opposing gay marriages and opposing homosexuals in general, while other speakers clearly stated that they do not have a problem with same-sex couples, only with including them under the legal definition of marriage.
“I have no hatred of people with tendencies that way,” Nolan said as dozens of gay supporters stood behind the stage where he spoke holding rainbow and “Shame” signs. “We should not hate them. We should pray for them.”
Massachusetts Your Catholic Voice Chairman Philip Moran, said Massachusetts’ government was founded as “a government of the people, for the people and by the people” and is now “a people governed by four people.”
Gloved fists ripped through the air as the crowd chanted “Let the people vote” between each speech and whenever the issue of democracy arose.
“It’s not the state legislators’ right,” said Ray Flynn, national president of Your Catholic Voice, which sponsored the rally along with the Massachusetts Catholic Conference and the Coalition for Marriage.
Flynn urged the people gathered on the Common to make their voices heard.
“Take the privilege [the justices] have away from them,” he said.
Many speakers invoked God and history to defend a traditional definition of marriage.
“God has not changed his mind about sexual sins,” said Sandy Rios, the president of Concerned Women for America. “Not homosexuality, adultery or sexual sins of any kind.”
Rios said the people of Massachusetts fought King George 250 years ago and now have to fight “another tyrant” in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
She also talked about what she called “damning health risks of homosexuality.”
“Men may fail, but God himself remains unchanged,” Rios said. “Morality is not bigotry.”
Former Boston Herald columnist Don Feder echoed Rios’ sentiments but took it a step further.
“Some call it bigotry,” he said, “I call it sanity.”
“We need to remind the SJC that marriage did not originate with the Massachusetts Constitution,” Feder said. “It considerably predates that document. God ordained marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Not two men, two women, or any consortment or conglomeration.”
Feder said marriage is a Jewish institution that Christianity molded into a Western tradition and that the SJC would “divorce society back to ancient Canaan” if it allows gay marriages. After quoting Robert Duvall’s character in the western movie Open Range, Feder erupted into his own variation on the fictional cowboy’s words.
“A man’s got a right to protect his family, faith and freedom,” Feder said. “Ain’t no judge gonna take it away.”
Several speakers talked about John Adams and the founding fathers and emphasized Boston’s place in the beginning of American history.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, also a former legislator from Louisiana, came from Washington, D.C. to Boston to rally against gay marriage.
“What the court is about to do is release chaos on society,” Perkins said. “The eyes of America are on your state.”
There was a demonstration by pro-gay marriage supporters across the street at an Episcopalian church where faint chanting could be heard over the speakers. The protesters had dispersed by the end of the hour-and-a-half rally.
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