Gay Rights Bill Nears Approval

A controversial gay rights bill moved one step closer to becoming Massachsetts law when the state Senate decided yesterday to sent the proposal back to committee for final fine-turning.

The Senate voted 20 to 15 in favor of sending the proposed bill to a third reading, the last requirement before a ratification debate, and legislators are guardedly optimistic that the 12-year-old proposal may pass this year.

"The bill has reached a major milestone, but it will be an uphill battle for ratification," said one of the bill's proponents State Sen. Michael Barrett (D-Cambridge).

The bill, which would protect gays in the areas of employment, housing and public accomodations, is modeled after state laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religious creed, sex, age and national origin or ancestry.

"The bill is way overdue--it's a crime that protection for homosexuals hasn't been provided for," said State Rep. Robert A. Durand (D-Marlborough), who pushed for the bill last spring in the House and is actively lobbying the Senate for support.

Massachusetts currently does not have a law to prevent discrimination based on all cases of sexual orientation, and Barrett said "it was extremely satisfying to know the Senate found the bill acceptable."

The only times that the bill came close to being ratified in the past was in 1983 when, after gaining House approval, the Senate voted it down by one vote. The last vote, in 1985, fell short in the House by 23 votes.

The bill this year has been approved in the House and passed preliminary votes in the Senate. Legislators are not certain when the bill will reach the Senate floor for a final vote.

Legislators said that the proposed bill, which received House approval during the past spring and successfully passed through the Senate Ways and Means Committee, will be given a third reading for typos and questions of Constitutionality in the next few weeks.

Massachusetts state law currently provides limited protection to homosexuals. The law allows "handicapped persons," which includes persons with AIDS or those--such as gay men--in a high risk group for the disease, to bring discrimination complaints to court.

An individual who is being discriminated against simply on the basis of sexual preference has no government protection, state officials said.

"The bill has some pretty tough opponents," said Pamela M. Silberstein, the legislative assistant to State Rep. Mark Roosevelt (D-Boston), the bill's major House proponent.

"We came closer than we ever have this year, but that doesn't mean that we are close," she said.

One of the most outspoken opponents of the bill is the Massachusetts Catholic Conference. They have said the bill will legitimize homosexuality to which the group is morally opposed.

Silberstein said ratification has been stalled by amendments that are being proposed on the senate floor. Among them include an amendment to have the bill placed on a non-binding referendum in the 1988 election, exempting owners of three-family homes from the bill, and exempting teachers who promote the practice of homosexuality in the classroom from the discriminatory provisions.

One of the more radical proposals that did not make it on to the bill yesterday was an amendment that would have required homosexuals to record their names at a state bureau like the registry of motor vehicles, Silberstein said.

General Counsel Jean Musiker of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) said that the commission receives phone calls from people who have been discriminated against, but the callers must be turned away because the commission is not legally granted the jurisdiction to investigate the problem.

In 1985 MACD conducted an informal survey of their own staff, in which they asked staff members to estimate the number of times they have been contacted by a person who was suffering from sexual orientation discrimination.

The results of the survey indicated that the commission recieved at least 170 complaints in a one-year period. Musiker said that many more cases occur without any record because violated people do not have legal support and remain silent.