NORTH OXFORD, Mass. — Maureen Hatch describes herself as a “low-key, don't-look-at-me” kind of person.

But, as the same-sex marriage debate in Massachusetts heated up in recent weeks, she felt compelled to enter the fray, attending a Jan. 25 rally in support of traditional marriage, one of three held that day across the state.

“I felt like I needed to start acting as opposed to just feeling, ‘Yeah, I think marriage should be between a man and a woman,’” she said.

The rallies came five days after President Bush's State of the Union address, in which he told a joint gathering of Congress, members of his Cabinet and others that “a strong America must … value the institution of marriage.”

The president criticized “activist judges” who he said have “begun redefining marriage … without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives.”

Last November, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued the Goodridge v. Massachusetts decision, saying the state must issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It gave legislators 180 days, or until mid-May, to craft a law that would allow homosexual marriage.

Bush, in his Jan. 20 speech, hinted that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifying marriage as between one man and one woman might be needed. But he did not explicitly call for such an amendment, an omission that had some disappointed.

Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana state legislator who is president of the Family Research Council, called the Goodridge decision “a cultural time bomb” and believes Bush doesn't understand the high stakes of the marriage battle.

Perkins interpreted the president's speech as saying, “Look, we can take care of it after it blows up.”

“We cannot wait until same-sex marriage licenses are issued in Massachusetts,” Perkins said.

Bush acknowledged that marriage is “an issue of such great consequence,” one on which “the people's voice must be heard.”

“If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process,” he stated. “Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage.”

Ground Zero

But if the Bush administration is waiting to see if an amendment is needed, many traditional-marriage advocates are looking to the statehouse. And Massachusetts is ground zero.

Hatch, who is married, was galvanized by a recent newsletter from the Life Action League of Massachusetts and by the state's four bishops, who asked the Massachusetts Catholic Conference in mid-January to mail 1 million fliers urging families to show their support for a state Marriage Affirmation and Protection Amendment.

The Massachusetts court ruling can be overturned, but only if the proposal to amend the state Constitution, which would preserve the definition of marriage as the union between a man and a woman, is approved twice by the Legislature in two consecutive years.

That would then allow the fate of the amendment to be decided by voters during a statewide referendum in November 2006. The first vote by the Legislature to consider the proposal is scheduled for Feb. 11.

Advocates worry that legislative leaders will delay the vote and that it will then be lost in the shuffle of presidential politics this year — the Massachusetts primary in March, the Democratic national convention in Boston in July and the general election in November.

State Senate President Robert Travaglini will postpone the Feb. 11 vote if the Supreme Judicial Court has not issued its advisory opinion by then on whether a “civil unions” bill the Senate passed in December meets the court's conditions in Goodridge, a spokeswoman said. But House Speaker Thomas Finneran has said he expected law-makers to vote, whether or not they hear from the court.

Delaying the vote will present a “tremendous obstacle” to placing it on the ballot in 2006, said Massachusetts Catholic Conference associate director for policy and research Daniel Avila. And until the state's Constitution is amended, experts say same-sex couples can apply to get civil-marriage licenses starting in May.

The Massachusetts Marriage Affirmation and Protection Amendment has the catchy acronym MA & PA, but homosexual activists are being proactive in trying to convince the public that same-sex unions should be seen as just as normal as heterosexual couples. They've been taking out full-page ads, including one that showed a lesbian pair and asked, “Why are ‘pro-family’ groups attacking this devoted couple?’”

The state's bishops sought to deflect criticism that they were encouraging bias and encouraged Catholics in the state's four dioceses to contact their legislators before Feb. 11.

‘Stakes Too High’

“People may be hesitant to act for fear of being falsely labeled as bigots or intolerant,” Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley, Bishop Daniel Reilly of Worcester, Bishop George Coleman of Fall River and Bishop Thomas Dupre of Springfield wrote in a Jan. 16 statement. “A full-scale campaign through the media to shame concerned citizens into silence is undoubtedly having an effect.”

Their words seemed to indicate concern that they were failing to drum up enough support for traditional marriage.

They insisted that the stakes are too high to sit out the debate. “We will have to answer to God for anything we fail to do,” the bishops said.

The bishops’ statements, the mailings and the rallies have encouraged some local Catholics.

“We're hoping that we'll be the start of another Boston Tea Party,” said Laurie Letourneau, president of the Life Action League of Massachusetts, one of the leaders in the grass-roots effort to protect traditional marriage.

But some homosexual-rights supporters view the debate differently than the Church. They see it through the prism of basic civil rights.

State Rep. Byron Rushing, a Democrat, recalls a game people used to play during the civil-rights movement. He said white people would ask African-Americans: “What do you want? Why are you having all these demonstrations?” And the reply was: “Make a list of all the things you want.” The white person would then list the opportunities and rights he wanted.

“And then you'd say, ‘Sign my name, Me, the black person,’” Rushing said. “Now you know what I want. And that's what homosexuals, gay people and lesbians who want to get married want. That's all they want. Nothing more.”

The bishops insisted their teaching is not discriminatory but that its moral doctrine “acknowledges the reality of evil in all its forms” and “does so to invite all individuals to repentance, reconciliation and healing.”

They also cited studies that showed the best venue for raising a child is a stable and permanent relationship between a man and a woman.

Wide Implications

Goodridge's implications go beyond the state, the Catholic Conference's Avila said. If civil-marriage licenses are granted to same-sex couples, some of those couples might move to other states and file lawsuits there to receive the same benefits and rights they got in Massachusetts, he said.

“And then we'll see a tremendous legal push through the courts to create same-sex marriages under the federal Constitution,” he predicted.

Currently, 37 states have laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman. But across the country there has been a push to recognize same-sex unions. In California, for instance, a San Francisco assemblyman, Mark Leno, recently announced he would introduce legislation to allow homosexual couples in California to obtain marriage licenses. Currently, they can register as domestic partners.

And family advocates in Connecticut fear moves to legalize homosexual marriage in their state. The Family Institute of Connecticut is planning a Marriage Protection Weekend in Hartford, the capital, Feb. 7-8.

Carlos Briceño is based in Seminole, Florida.