Issue Position: Civil Rights
Issue Position
Protecting our Civil Liberties and Promoting Equality for All
Jamie has been an advocate for protecting civil rights and promoting equality for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, or disability.
A strong supporter of LGBT equality, he was proud to be one of the leaders of the legislative team that helped defeat the anti-gay constitutional amendments and protected marriage equality in the Commonwealth. Jamie will always oppose any attempts to take the right to marry away from gay and lesbian couples, and work to ensure that the State protects and respects all families.
Jamie is also proud to be a co-sponsor of An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes, which will include gender identity and expression in the state's non-discrimination statute and will amend existing hate crime laws to explicitly protect people targeted for violence and harassment.
Jamie also strongly supports a woman's right to choose and will oppose any effort to restrict access to any reproductive health services. He supports efforts to expand access to reproductive health services to keep women safe and protect these important rights.
In the 2007-2009 legislative session, Jamie was a proud cosponsor of the Buffer Zone Bill. The bill passed and was signed by the governor, implementing one of the strongest buffer zone laws in the nation.
Jamie has also been a strong supporter of disability rights. He has consistently supported increased funding to protect the disabled, and this session he has filed several pieces of legislation to offer greater protections to the disabled, including a law that would require public safety officials to report suspected abuse of disabled persons.
Finally, Jamie is the lead Senate sponsor of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Restoration Act with Representative Byron Rushing (D-Boston), which restores the right of an individual to bring a claim where a governmental policy or activity has the effect of unlawfully discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin or sex.
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