Word: amendmenteers
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Backers of the amendment said that if the amendment passes, they will not seek to nullify the marriages that had already taken place. Approximately 6,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts since November 2003.
If the amendment passed the ballot in 2008, it would nullify a November 2003 state Supreme Court decision that extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.
The amendment would define marriage as the union between one man and one woman and would not make any mention of civil unions. It will likely sap conservative support away from an existing compromise amendment that would ban same-sex marriage while affirming partners’ rights to civil unions...
Massachusetts Governor W. Mitt Romney, who had previously supported the compromise, publicly endorsed this new proposal, calling it “a very clean, straightforward, unambiguous amendment.”
To qualify the petition for the state ballot, sponsor VoteOnMarriage.org must collect 65,825 signatures, after which the 32-word petition would need approval by only one-quarter of the Legislature, or 50 of its 200 members. Writing the amendment into the state’s constitution would require a...