Globe Misleads About Marriage Amendment

Dredges Up Old Story; Places it On Front Page of ‘City & Region’

February 2002

The Globe continued to fight the “Protection of Marriage” amendment last month by dredging up an old discredited story – even after it was clear that the amendment had gone way over the top in signatures.

It printed again the whining of a paid consultant who is upset because she ran a ballot petition about horses in Massachusetts from her New York home and was embarrassed when she failed to obtain the necessary signatures. She spent $160,000 of someone’s money in the attempt.

The Globe printed an article with the headline, Accusations swirl on petition tactics, in which the reporter, Stephanie Ebbert, took another swipe at the Marriage Amendment. This was a prominent story on the front page of the “City & Region” section.

Ebbert wrote in her first paragraph that “horse defenders thought it was a sure bet” that they would obtain enough signatures.

In her second paragraph, she revealed her bias two times in the following phrase, “A far more controversial proposal to ban gay marriage ...”

In the first instance, the Protection of Marriage amendment is not “far more controversial.” It obviously has great support from the voters. Who told Ebbert it doesn’t? This is obviously her own prejudice.

In the second instance, the amendment is not a “proposal to ban gay marriage.” It is a proposal to keep the definition of marriage as between one-man-and-one-woman. There are many groups other than gays who want to change that definition. And the Boston Globe knows that.

Unhappy Losers

One has to feel empathy with someone who has been unsuccessful. But the Globe is carrying this to an extreme by reporting again, on the front page of its second section, that horse people and the gays are unhappy. It wrote:

“Now, defenders of both animal rights and gay rights are challenging the fates of the disparate initiatives, saying the signature gathering company misled citizens into putting their names on the gay marriage ban when they thought they were signing the petition against horse slaughter.”

It quoted the woman who is the lobbyist for both the Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus and the Mass. Teachers Association (although it did not identify her relationship with the teachers) as saying:

“‘What we’re dealing with here is mirror-image outrage: We’re outraged that our rights are threatened because of fraud and forgery, and they’re outraged because their access to the ballot is denied because of fraud and forgery.”

Attorney General Cited One More Time

On November 16, Attorney General Tom Reilly announced that he had received “several” complaints from people who said they had been asked to sign a petition to ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption and had been given the marriage petition instead.

(The word “several” is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “more than two, but not many.”)

This caused Reilly, who had greatly angered the homosexual community when he approved the Amendment for the ballot in September, to mollify them by issuing a News Release warning all signers to, “Carefully read the actual piece of paper you are being asked to sign.”

Bryan Rudnick, Executive Director of Mass. Citizens for Marriage, responded at that time that he agreed wholeheartedly with the warning from Reilly that everyone must be certain what they are signing when approached by any petition gatherer.

“This new tactic [by the opponents] shows our supporters that they must be ready for a long fight because the people on the other side will do anything to win,” said Rudnick.

“They do not want an intelligent discussion of the issues. We’ve been aware for some time that some of the people who are a part of the organized opposition to our petition have signed the petition in order to cry ‘foul’ at some point in the process. Therefore, we anticipated this type of complaint to the Attorney General’s office. We do not know the number of people in opposition to us who have done this on purpose, but it is probably more than one or two. We have warned our petition gatherer to be very careful when obtaining the signatures to avoid any possibility that his people may be confusing people.

“The people who are gathering signatures for us are the same ones who have been doing this for both Carla Howell and the people opposing the slaughter of horses. If any or all of these signature gatherers have been deceptive, they will be condemned by everyone, including us.

“By the same token, the people who are making false accusations should also be condemned.

“The Attorney General gives excellent advice when he admonishes everyone, ‘Carefully read the actual piece of paper you are signing.’”

Horse Consultant Wants It on Ballot

The disappointed horse consultant said she is unconcerned with the marriage question but merely wants to get her horse referendum on the ballot.

“We believe that because of everything we know about the horse slaughter issue, from numerous polls all over the country, ours was the one that everyone wanted to sign,” Wagner said. “The idea that we didn’t qualify or didn't have enough signatures is ridiculous. We believe that thousands of our signatures ended up on the other petition.”

But the Attorney General made it clear that it is too late to challenge the Amendment.

Silly Complaint

The best that the Globe was able to do was to present the following complaint from a woman who apparently believes that her opinion is important because she works for a lawyer. But even if everything she says is true, she did not recite any evidence of fraud. If there was an attempt to deceive, she was not tricked. At the worst, if it did happen as she says, it would be seen only as a "hard-sell." Here’s what the Globe wrote:

“Darby Daoust, a Lee voter, said she had to be alert when a Ballot Access worker at Berkshire Community College got her to sign the horse petition, then asked if she would sign another.

“He told her simply, ‘it’s about the benefits of marriage,’ Daoust recounted, and folded the page to hide the language explaining its features, which would define marriage as a heterosexual couple, and reserve its benefits for heterosexual, married couples.

“‘He said it’s so everybody can have benefits if they’re married,” she recalled. “I work for an attorney that practices family law. I'm thinking, oh, really?

“Daoust protested and refused to sign, but remained angry at the tactics.”