Reply #5: A look back [View All]

[capriccio]

Kerry on DOMA (from the Boston Phoenix):

But the senator himself was more emphatic on September 5, 1996, when he told the Boston Herald, "This bill is election-year pandering of the worst order, and I will not be a party to legislative gay-bashing." Go get 'em, John! Now, repeat after Media Log: The state constitutional amendment favored by Governor Mitt Romney and House Speaker Tom Finneran is election year pandering of the worst order, and I will not be a party to legislative gay-bashing.

DOMA finally passed the Senate on September 10. And Kerry was notably blunt in expressing his opposition. According to the next day's Globe, Kerry called DOMA "fundamentally ugly, fundamentally political, and fundamentally flawed," adding: "The results of this bill will not be to preserve anything, but will serve to attack a group of people out of various motives and rationales and certainly out of a lack of tolerance."

The Herald published this Kerry sound bite: "This is an unconstitutional, unprecedented, unnecessary, and mean-spirited bill."