Jackson says gay marriage not a big campaign issue

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, in appearances at Harvard Law School in Boston and Holy Cross Church in Worcester, Mass., voiced support for equal marriage rights for gay couples but predicted that the topic would not be a dominant issue in the 2004 presidential campaign. "Gays deserve the right of choice to choose their own partners," Jackson told an overflow crowd at Holy Cross on Monday night. "If you don't agree, don't participate and don't perform the service. In my culture, marriage is a man-woman relationship, but under the law people have a right to choose their own partner." However, earlier in the day at Harvard, before an audience of several hundred people, Jackson rebuked those who equate the gay marriage cause with the civil rights movement. "The comparison with slavery is a stretch, in that some slave masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution...and in that they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote," Jackson said. "What is the same is that we all as citizens have the right to choose our partners." At a luncheon during his Harvard visit, Jackson, responding to a question, said the gay marriage issue could be treacherous territory for the Democratic Party this election season. "It will not be the dominant issue in the 2004 campaign the right wing wants it to be," Jackson said. "It's a Republican tactical strategy to distract from such issues as foreign policy and education." Jackson, a two-time presidential candidate, said his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition will work in 35 battleground states, especially in the South, to register voters and help get people to the polls. He did not endorse any candidate in the presidential primary campaign. The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is holding a fund-raising effort in Boston this week.