[1]BOSTON (BP)–The Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts has announced that she supports the legalization of same-sex marriage. Shannon O’Brien stood with about two dozen homosexual political leaders in front of Old City Hall in Boston Oct. 15 and said she would support gay marriage if the legislature approved such a measure, according to the Boston Globe Oct. 16.
“I would support a marriage piece of legislation, but I think that the fight needs to focus on civil unions because I think it is one that we can win,” O’Brien said. But if she were governor and a same-sex marriage bill came to her desk, she said she would sign it.
At this point, no state has legalized same-sex marriages, but Vermont permits same-sex “civil unions.”
O’Brien’s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has been endorsed by the local chapter of the nation’s largest group of gay and lesbian Republicans, the Log Cabin Club, according to the Globe.
Romney, although opposing same-sex marriages and civil unions, won the Log Cabin endorsement with his support for offering domestic partner benefits to public employees.
A bishop for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Romney reportedly condemned homosexuality in a 1994 address to single Mormons in Cambridge, Mass., calling the practice “perverse” and an “evil in our day.”
[2]Both Romney and O’Brien have accused one another of changing their stance on homosexuality to fit the political climate. When O’Brien entered the race for governor, she was opposed to gay marriage, according to the Globe.
On the same day she made the pro-gay marriage announcement, O’Brien campaigned with U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat and former vice presidential candidate.
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