SalemNews.com, Salem, MA

Yesterday's gay-marriage vote hit both sides in a very personal way.

"I'm just honest-to-God speechless," said a happy Jim Maynard of Salem, explaining that as soon as the news came through he was exchanging excited telephone calls with friends, "one after another," celebrating a great day "for me and my husband and my two teenage sons."

"We're very disappointed," said Thomas Shields of Salem and the Coalition for Marriage and Family, adding darkly, "We find it extraordinary that 10 votes changed overnight." His allies will now "take a look at what our alternatives are."

With a 45-151 vote, lawmakers yesterday defeated a proposal to ban same-sex marriage. Gay-marriage opponents needed 50 votes to put the question on the November 2008 ballot.

Maynard, who has been at the Statehouse for previous votes, was in his office in the Prudential building yesterday when he got the news. Noting that he counsels "at-risk" gay children as part of the Northshore Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth, he said, "I'm happy as a pig in mud that these kids will be able to get married. And if that ruffles feathers, that's OK."

Conceding that winning a statewide vote might have had advantages, Maynard said many past civil rights laws wouldn't have survived such votes. Moreover, opponents of gay marriage did get a vote from the Legislature. "That's what the other side was demanding. And they voted. And they lost."

Now, he added, the electorate can express any displeasure by ousting the representatives and senators who decided against allowing the vote.

But voting out gay-marriage supporters is not likely to happen, Shields said. Speaking from a very noisy Statehouse, he blamed media and money - "It's very clear we were outspent" - for denying the will of the 170,000 people who signed the petition requesting the referendum.

"I think it's sad," Shields said. "I think it's sad for our families. I think it's sad for our society. I think it's sad for our country. ... A small movement has enormous leverage and enormous power, and they have the media on their side."

The mechanics of the referendum law required two votes by the combined Senate and House. The first passed, gaining slightly more than the required 50 votes. With stories circulating about arm twisting and job offers, a frustrated Shields wondered what suddenly persuaded his supporters to desert the cause.

"We certainly heard the rumors," he said. Yet, he could offer no substantial evidence of wrongdoing.

"I think our representatives did what they are supposed to do in a representative democracy," said the Rev. Jeffrey Barz-Snell of the First Church in Salem, Unitarian. "I'm very happy for all the gay couples I know and whose weddings I performed. This protects them under the laws of our state."

Despite the controversy surrounding the issue, Barz-Snell predicts no long-lasting impact. People younger than 40 are accepting of same-sex marriage, he said. "I predict in 20 years' time people will wonder what the big deal was."

The law has been on the books in Massachusetts for several years, he said. "And I really don't see any deleterious sociological ramifications." He rejects "slippery slope" arguments - that it will lead to polygamy or various other forms of marriage. He would oppose such changes.

"When two people love each other," Barz-Snell said, "same-sex or hetero - I think God is smiling."

Catholic activist Phillip Moran of Salem says that the ill effects of the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling mandating gay marriage are already showing.

"I'm terribly disappointed," he said. "They're opening Pandora's box. Now there will be a constant battle between gay rights and religion."

Gay rights will eventually win out, Moran said glumly.

"Children as low as kindergarten are being taught that gay marriage is equal to traditional marriage," Moran said. Homosexual activists will "push and push" any advantage they gain, he predicted.

For his part, Maynard held that it might not be a bad thing to push from polite society religions that disparage homosexuality.

Marblehead's Barbara Anderson, who has worked on initiative petitions since the 1970s, is mostly relieved that the Legislature finally took a vote. "But I always think it's too bad when the voters don't get to vote."

No opponent of gay marriage, Anderson laments that pro-gay forces didn't "stand up and argue their cause. I always thought they would have won. But they were afraid to try it. And now they'll never know."