BayWindows.com – by Ethan Jacobs – Staff Reporter
The marriage amendment fight may have ended last summer, but the amendment’s prime sponsor, the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), is still waging an anti-LGBT culture war on Beacon Hill. MFI and its grassroots offshoot, the Coalition for Marriage and Family, have their sights trained on House Bill 1722, legislation that would add trans-inclusive language to the state’s hate crimes and non-discrimination laws. MFI has also quietly continued its push for reciprocal beneficiary legislation, which would grant some marriage-like benefits to unmarried people and which LGBT advocates believe is designed to lay the groundwork for another effort to ban same-sex marriage.
MFI and the Coalition sounded the alarm on H.B. 1722 on Jan. 18, sending an e-mail action alert to their supporters warning that the bill “threatens bathroom and locker room safety.”