Thank you Mr. President,

And through you to the members. It is a pleasure to see you here today presiding over your first Constitutional Convention, and thank you also to our speaker, Tom Finneran, for your hospitality in hosting the Senate in this chamber. I enjoyed my four years in the House of Representatives, and it is a pleasure to come back and speak at this very historic august and momentous occasion.

Brief interruption to quiet the chamber.

We are here today on this august occasion talking about a historic event. We do meet in Constitutional Convention every session, and it is frequently the case, if we actually get to all the questions, that we debate amending the Constitution. Indeed, there are nine or 10 other questions that we should be debating during this Constitutional Convention. There are frequent attempts to do so, but what is unique about today, what is special, what has attracted all of us with great vigor to prepare speeches; to listen to our colleagues in the House and in the Senate; what has attracted those in the gallery up top and all those press folks, and yes Mr. Havern, all those e-mails; what has attracted all the attention is an unprecedented event in the history of these Constitutional Conventions.

For the first time since 1780, should House 3190 go to the ballot, we would be working to amend our Constitution in a way which set up a two-tiered structure, which would give some people rights and deny them to others. And whatever you believe about the Supreme Judicial Court ], it has spoken. On May 17^th all of us have the same rights, the same protections, and the same benefits of marriage. And what this Constitutional Convention would do, for the first time in the history of the oldest Constitution in the Western Hemisphere, would be to take away rights. But let me be clear. Benefits and protections of marriage, and I want to be honest, I’m obviously talking about denying these rights to a certain class of citizens: taxpayers, people who live next to you, people who may be in your family, and people you may happen to work with. Now I’m biased, and I know you’re all thinking that. He is up here because he’s gay, and in fact, I am the first person to speak on this amendment who is directly affected by it. I’ll admit that. My partner of 10 –and-a-half years is also affected by this amendment. And because we will lose social security survivorship benefits; because we will lose inheritance benefits; because I will lose healthcare as a state employee; because I will lose numerous financial benefits that go along with marriage; my two children are also affected by this amendment. So I think it is fair to say I’m biased, and my partner Doug, and my children, Nathaniel and Javier, are all very biased. So rather than talking about things and pretending I’m not, I thought the way I would approach my speech on this subject would be to let some other people speak for me.

You have received a document that reads at the top, “From California to Maine.” I’m going to refer to that so you can read along with me if you’d like. What you have before you is in the form of a further amendment to the amendment to House 3190, which reads as follows. This is what the gentleman from Rehoboth read to you earlier, but just to refresh your memory, and if you’ll indulge me, because the words and the details do matter, I will ask you to read again what the gentleman so kindly read earlier.

“It being the public policy of this Commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage in order to promote among other goals, the stability and welfare of society and the best interest of children, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Massachusetts. Nothing in this article requires or prohibits civil unions”

And of course the discussion has turned on just what this Defense of Marriage Act means. Some have argued they can justify marriage between a man and a woman, and that we can come back tomorrow in legislative session and give homosexual people all of the same benefits but protect the name, protect the institution for themselves. But I want to share with you the words of those same people at the national level and in other states. I want to share with you their words, if you will indulge me.

In California there was a Supreme Court amendment in the year 2000—the amendment that the public voted on was not a long one. It was quite simple. It was quite direct. It read only one line, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Now at the time of that campaign to pass that amendment there were many of us biased individuals who said, “If you pass that, we are going to lose our domestic partnership benefits. If you pass that, you won’t be able to do civil unions.”

The words of the proponents of DOMA are as follows. This is a quote from MSNBC March 1^st, year 2000, “We recognize that people should be able to have protection when it comes to domestic partnership rights, to hospital visitation rights, when it comes to inheritance. Those rights won’t be taken away.”

Now, after this proposition—in California they’re called propositions—Proposition 22 passed at the ballot box, very soon thereafter, these proponents, who said that no rights would be lost went to court and cited Proposition 22, now part of the Constitution of California. And what they said was this: Proposition 22, quote, “was intended to protect the institution of marriage, including all rights, benefits, and duties of marriage.”

They said that as part of their lawsuit in seeking to repeal domestic partnership ordinances, and more importantly a state statute, which was, as some called it, a domestic partnership statute, others referred to it as a civil union statute, and in attempting to repeal that, they became liars. Their initial statements revealed themselves to be nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Now, I cited California, the left coast. You might dismiss my words, you might dismiss what happened in California, but let me assure you, California is not the only state where this has happened. Very recently in Pennsylvania they passed, and I’m not going to keep reading all of these because they do begin to sound the same, a Defense of Marriage Act. And as soon as they passed it in 2002, those who passed it promising it wouldn’t affect basic protections like healthcare, like inheritance rights, like being able to put your partner and your kids in a more financially secure place as an employee of the City of Philadelphia, which had a domestic partnership ordinance, they took the city to court. And you know what? They won, and in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, it is constitutionally barred to pass any local protection, any domestic partnership ordinance, any civil unions law—a law which would simply allow you to visit your partner in the hospital. That is what DOMA does (choking back tears).

California. Pennsylvania. Maine. Maryland. Florida. This strategy has been used again and again. Don’t believe those who tell you that just defining a marriage between a man and a woman will not hurt your gay and lesbian friends, your family members, your neighbors, and your colleagues, because it will. It will.

And I want to encourage you to please take a look at the second page. Those advocates for DOMA right here in Massachusetts have been saying some of the same things. I’m not going to read them, but what I will share with you is this. They have, in communications to themselves said, and you can read this, “With this we will be able to prevent domestic partnership ordinances.”

And I will refer you to the letter in “The Pilot,” which is issued by the Archdiocese of Boston Nov. 30 2001, a quote from a gentleman named Daniel Avila. “These are the same forces at work in MA.”

Now, we are debating DOMA in its current form. My point here really is this:ou can call it super DOMA,you can call it simple DOMA, you can call it whatever the heck you want. But don’t fool yourself about what you’re voting for. And, in reading this language, I guess I just want to make the point that it will deny basic rights—rights that many of you may not even understand. All rights that you now have. And so, if you will indulge me again, I would like to share a personal story.

I have, as I mentioned, Javier and Nathaniel the two boys we recently adopted who are seven and 12.About two weeks ago, the younger one became sick. He’s been with us about two-and-a-half months. Now, it was our first serious illness with Nathaniel. And I have to say, I was a little taken aback, as many new parents are. I was really blown away. In fact, I didn’t listen to him perhaps as seriously as I should have his first day. I thought he just didn’t want to go to school. But, when the nurse called us up and we went and picked him up, because he had a low-grade fever, we brought him home. And over the course of that Wednesday, his fever grew worse and worse.

Now I told you, and please don’t laugh at me when I share this, that I’m a new parent. I did what most new parents probably do. You do what your Mom did and what your Dad did. That’s all I knew. So when the fever came on, I did what my Mom used to do. You need to sweat the fever out. Put another blanket on him. Put another blanket on him. And his fever kept getting higher and higher. It was 104.5 when I called the hospital. I was very, very upset, as you can imagine. And in addition to my being upset, my little seven-year-old was screaming. He was in great pain, as is anybody with a fever, anybody with such an illness. I reached a nurse at the hospital. And I started going into his symptoms. I told her the name and she said to me, “Are you the parent?” And I said, “My name is Jarrett. I’m the parent.”

“The parent we have listed is Doug Hattaway.”

And I said, “That’s my partner.”

“But we don’t have you listed. Are you married? You aren’t—”

What ensued seemed like an eternity, when my child had 104.5 fever, and I admit, I was a new parent. I thought, as many new parents thought, he could die on my watch, while I was fighting with a nurse over whether I was his parent or not. The human aspect to this debate is very important to understand. I will never be able to go on as the partner, the married partner, if any DOMA passes. None of your gay friends, your neighbors, your loved ones, will. There are real harms that are incurred by this.

And let me ask you this. Is my family so different than any of yours? My son got sick. I called the hospital. Children do get sick, and we need to have healthcare coverage for them. We need to have services for them. Their parents need to be treated as equals to other parents in advocating for them. Marriage makes this possible, makes it possible for all our children to be loved and respected and cared for. If I were to die tomorrow, before May 17^th, I would be ineligible, my partner would be ineligible, for social security survivorship benefits. And more surprisingly, to all of you, my fellow state employees who participate in the pension system, I am currently barred from designating my partner as my pension beneficiary. How am I to make sure my children will be taken care of, as you no doubt would want to make arrangements to take care of yours, if I am legally barred from designating him as my beneficiary? My children and my family are deeply impacted by this. I am just one vote in this debate. There are tens of thousands of people in our Commonwealth who are in the exact same position that I am.

If we take the unprecedented vote to put DOMA on the ballot, to give up Barrabas, if we take such a vote, I am quite certain that I know what will happen over the next two years. I will be demonized. People like me, in the press, on the radio. It will be a very ugly time. But we’re still at the end of that tunnel. If this were to pass, I would be denied basic rights that many of you take for granted, that you don’t even understand to be a right.

Last Sunday night I was watching the television with Javier, my older son, and on came the news, because I am trying to educate him in public affairs, and there was pictures from a rally last Sunday on Boston common. And he asked me when he saw one of the posters. I’m not going to repeat the epithet that was on the poster. Many of you can fill in the blank. God hates ****. He asked me if God hated ****. Now some of you know me in many ways. You know that I’m the Latino senator. I’m the gay guy. I’m the liberal from Cambridge. You may not know that my children and I are practicing Catholics, weekly parishioners at St. Catherine’s of Sienna in Charlestown. I’m educating them in CCD there, and I’m a proud, proud catholic. I didn’t want to let the question go unaddressed. Does God hate people?

Because that is the question on the table. I got home last night and they were watching the debates. I’m sure a lot of your kids and your family members were watching us. Many of us were on national television last night. Quite an exciting event. I got home and they were up. They shouldn’t have been up. They should have been in bed. They were up. It was nearly ten O’clock. Before sending them to bed, he asked me again, “Who are the good guys? Who does God hate here?”

For the people who understand that this is an issue of basic human rights and who intend to vote against 3190 in any form, despite how much intimidation you may be receiving, death threats, as one of the senators has received, calls and e-mails, or another colleague in the house who was spit upon for taking her position. Despite all of those, I want you to know, at least as I described you to Javier, you are profiles in courage. But I also want to say this. It would be easy, whatever side of this issue that you are on, to demonize the other side. And it would be easy to teach my son to hate. Easy to answer the question, “Who’s the bad guy here? Who does god hate?” How easy it would be.

This I learned in the gospel of Matthew, chapter five, verse 43. This is what we learned not to do as Christians. Then, in the Old Testament, we learned, “Love thy neighbor, hate thy enemy.”

And in the words of Jesus, as reported in St. Matthew, my favorite gospel, Jesus instructs us, “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” And I am teaching Javier how to pray. Thank you.

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