Dems Use NY Marriage Equality to Tweak Sen. Brown

Massachusetts Democrats are using New York's adoption of gay marriage to tweak Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown for his continued opposition to same-sex marriage.

Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh said all the declared Democratic candidates challenging Brown in next year's election support gay marriage.

"As we saw in New York, the fight for marriage equality is marching on and even many Republicans are rethinking their positions on same-sex marriage," he said in a statement.

"I think Massachusetts families deserve to know if Scott Brown still opposes marriage equality," Walsh added.

A Brown aide said Monday that the senator still opposes gay marriage and supports the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of gay marriages.

"We've already had the debate on gay marriage in Massachusetts. It's time to move on," Brown spokesman Colin Reed said. "Senator Brown's focus is on jobs."

Reed also pointed out that Brown voted to end the military's Clinton-era ban on gays serving openly, known as "don't ask, don't tell."

Massachusetts was the first state to allow gay marriage in 2004 after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the existing ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution.

Brown's Democratic colleague in the Senate, John Kerry, also supports gay marriage.

Kerry, who voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, filed a bill earlier this year to repeal the law, also known as DOMA.

Kerry said the law is discriminatory because legally married same-sex couples in Massachusetts are denied hundreds of federal benefits and protections available to other married couples.

Although President Barack Obama has also said he opposes same-sex marriage, his administration announced in February that it would no longer defend the federal marriage law in court against challenges to its constitutionality.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, a Democrat who lost to Brown in the election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of longtime Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, had successfully argued against the federal law.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro last year ruled that the federal law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define the institution and therefore denies married gay couples some federal benefits.

Tauro made the ruling in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, one of which was filed by Coakley.

Obama, when elected, said he supported broadening rights for gay couples but opposed legalizing same-sex marriage. More recently, he has said his position is "evolving," and he asked gay activists at a recent New York City fundraiser for patience.