On the main site, Dan Flynn has a piece looking at Ted Kennedy's
complicated relationship with the Catholic Church. One example
might be found in this Bay Windows
article crediting Ted Kennedy with denying the people a vote
on same-sex marriage in Massachusetts:
Our cause was lining up the votes to defeat an anti-gay
constitutional amendment that would strip same-sex couples of
the right to marry. A final vote was scheduled for July 14,
2007. Our opponents needed the votes of only 25 percent of the
legislature to advance a citizen-led amendment to the ballot.
We had lined up two-thirds of the legislature through
fieldwork, lobbying, media, literally everything we could think
of. But getting those last 15 legislators-those conservative
Democrats from working class Massachusetts communities and a
few libertarian-leaning Republicans-was very tough. We needed
all hands on deck to keep a Massachusetts version of
Proposition 8 off the ballot. We needed Ted Kennedy.
"Could you get me a list of your targets?" one of Kennedy's key
staffers finally asked me. "Don't tell anyone I'm asking you
for this," he said. He meant it, and I didn't.
A few days later, as I was doing my rounds in the State House,
a bewildered conservative legislator stopped me. "You'll never
guess who left me a message about gay marriage," he said. "Ted
Kennedy." And then I started to hear similar refrains again and
again. We'd get word that he'd spoken to the Governor, the
Speaker of the House, the Senate President, the chair of the
Democratic Party, asking for updates, strategizing, figuring
out exactly what he could do and how he could be most helpful.
On July 14, the amendment failed. Now, this article may overstate
Kennedy's role. Over the same period, Mitt Romney was replaced as
governor by a supporter of same-sex marriage. House Speaker Tom
Finneran had already been succeeded by a same-sex marriage
supporter. So when Kennedy was lobbying for one side, there were
no comparably big guns being pulled out by the other side. Except
for Senator Kennedy's Catholic Church, in the form of the
Archdiocese of Boston.
