An umbrella organization that has fought for four years to end same-sex marriage in Massachusetts has given up on plans to put the issue to voters in 2010.VoteOnMarriage was thwarted last month in its bid to get a proposed amendment banning gay marriage on the ballot in 2008. The organization had collected enough signatures to advance the amendment and it passed the first of a two stage legislature approval process last January. But when it came up for a second vote last month it failed to get the necessary 50 votes in a joint session of the House and Senate.
VoteOnMarriage had collected 170,000 signatures but the failure of the measure to advance in the legislature meant the group back at square one having to collect signatures all over again.
The organization, a collection of conservative groups, evangelicals and the Roman Catholic Church, said it will now focus on 2012.
In the meantime, said spokesperson Kris Mineau, it will work to defeat lawmakers who voted against the amendment. Mineau said members of the House and Senate who did not support putting the amendment to voters would be targeted in 2008. "This campaign is far from over, believe me. Some of these legislators will go away, but we will not."
In 2003, the Supreme Judicial Court barred the state from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the first same-sex marriages were conducted the following year.
Since then more than 10,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts.
LGBT civil rights group MassEquality said that the decision not to try to get an amendment on the 2010 ballot showed support was "weak and dwindling."
"The handwriting is on the wall," he told the Globe.
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