TWO MASS. CATHOLIC LAWMAKERS WHO SUPPORT SSM "FIRM IN FAITH, BELIEF": From the Boston Globe

Two Catholic state lawmakers, Representative Marie P. St. Fleur and Senator Marian Walsh, said yesterday their religious faith had inspired them to support same-sex marriage, despite pronouncements from Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley declaring that such marriages are incompatible with Catholic teachings.

Speaking as they were honored for courage by the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, the two Boston Democrats reflected publicly on the tension provoked by their decisions to support same-sex marriage during a heated vote in the Legislature last year. St. Fleur said she faced "a lot of anger" in her parish, and that some people placed "nasty" telephone calls to her home. Walsh talked about her difficult campaign for reelection in a socially conservative, heavily Catholic district.

"There were people whom I have known since I walked into that parish at 7 years of age, who could not understand how at this age I was moving away from all that I was born and raised [to believe]," St. Fleur said. "But I came to understand that I was not moving away, but was in fact affirming all that I had learned in all those CCD classes, and that it is one thing to read it in the Bible, one thing to go through the sacraments, but it is another thing to stand up and really support and demonstrate that the Bible too is a living word, just as the Constitution." ...

"My faith is really what gave me so much of the clarity and confidence to give witness to Christ," Walsh said in an interview after the ceremony. "Christ made all people equally, and some of different orientation." ...

The organization also honored Episcopal Bishop M. Thomas Shaw for his active support of legalizing same-sex marriage even though his own denomination defines marriage as heterosexual. Shaw told the group that he plans to launch an effort to change the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church USA to allow same-sex marriage.

The group recognized Rabbi Daniel Judson, of Temple Beth David of the South Shore in Canton, for his decision to purchase a newspaper ad featuring the names of about 100 rabbis who support same-sex marriage, a step he said he took because he was upset about what he perceived as excessive news media attention to the opposition to same-sex marriage by Catholic church officials and evangelical Protestants.

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