News
OSI Grantees Speak Out On Same-Sex Marriage
In response to a November 2003 Massachusetts court decision requiring legal recognition of gay marriage in the state, several members of Congress announced their backing for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Since then, several OSI grantees have spoken out against the proposed amendment and have begun work to prevent its passage—an effort considered even more vital in the wake of President Bush's endorsement of such an amendment on February 24, 2004.
On February 15, Evan Wolfson, executive director of OSI grantee Freedom to Marry, told the Boston Globe, "As in any civil rights movement there are advances and there are attacks, there is progress and there is resistance, and ours is no different." The Washington Post also looked to the group for some perspective on the issue, quoting Wolfson in a February 11 article that said "the White House" and "the Christian Right are being deliberately deceptive" and that the language of the amendment is deliberately "vague and sweeping." The San Francisco Chronicle quoted the National Center for Lesbian Rights, also an OSI grantee, in a February 15 article on the issue.
