Gay and lesbian activists are tearful in Washington state, joyful in Connecticut and angry in Texas after a series of legislative votes that reflect America’s tumultuous, seesaw debate over whether to broaden or narrow their rights.

Connecticut, in a historic step last week, became the first state to approve marriage-like civil unions for same-sex couples without the prodding of a court order. However, on the same day the Texas House voted to bar gays from being foster parents; the next day the Washington Senate, by one vote, defeated a major gay civil-rights bill.

In Alabama, meanwhile, lawmakers considered a bill aimed at keeping books tolerant of homosexuality out of public schools. A despondent lesbian activist, Patricia Todd, told a House committee: “I feel you all hate us.”

Gay-rights leaders and their opponents tried to depict the contrasting events in a positive light.

“As in any civil rights movement, it’s often three steps forward and two steps back,” said Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay-rights group. “Sometimes, we have all of that movement in the context of one week.”

He was particularly encouraged by the developments in Connecticut, where Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed a civil union bill that reached her desk with bipartisan support.

The only other states to go as far — Vermont with civil unions and Massachusetts with full recognition of same-sex marriage — acted under court orders, enabling opponents of gay rights to blame “activist judges” for circumventing the people’s will. In Connecticut, Solmonese said, “it was an organic product of the legislative process.”

Election backlash?

However, Brian Brown of the conservative Family Institute of Connecticut contended that the civil union bill would not have won approval in a popular referendum. He predicted lawmakers of both parties who supported it could face tough challenges in the 2006 election.

“Not a single legislator ran on this issue in 2004,” he said. “You can’t say this is the democratic process at work until you see the results of the next election.”

A gay pride flag whips in the wind as marchers prepare for a march down Massachusetts Street. The Lawrence gay-rights march began at the conclusion of Saturday's Earth Day Parade. Hundreds of people participated in the march. Earlier this month, Douglas County residents voted overwhelmingly against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Brown’s group is helping organize a rally today at the state Capitol opposing civil unions. He estimated that 10,000 people might attend.

“You’re going to see a new political force in this state that’s unlike anything you’ve seen before,” he said.

‘Quick’ progress

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said the Connecticut bill showed how quickly the debate over same-sex marriage had evolved.

“Five years ago the concept of civil unions caused a virtual civil war in Vermont,” he said, while in Connecticut it was an easy-to-accept option for many politicians not ready to endorse gay marriage.

In contrast to Connecticut, some activists were in tears at Washington’s Capitol in Olympia on Thursday as senators — by a 25-24 vote — rejected a House-passed bill banning discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing, employment and insurance. In three decades of trying, it was the closest the bill’s supporters had come to victory.

“We have exposed bigotry and prejudice,” said Rep. Ed Murray, an openly gay Democrat from Seattle. “We didn’t win today, but we will win.”

Texas foster bill

Also dismaying to activists was approval by the Texas House of Representatives of a proposal to bar gays and lesbians from being foster parents. No other state has such a law in force.

“I don’t think it is right for young children to be exposed to this type of behavior when they are young and innocent,” said the measure’s sponsor, Rep. Robert Talton.

The measure’s fate in the Texas Senate is uncertain. National gay-rights groups are mobilizing to seek its defeat, warning that it could cause many hundreds of foster children to be removed from their homes.

“As a parent, I cannot even imagine the horror of a knock at the door and the state ripping our children away from me and my spouse,” said Jennifer Crisler of the Family Pride Coalition, a national group advocating on behalf of gay families.

‘We hate you’

No vote was taken last week on the Alabama bill that prompted Patricia Todd’s remark about hate. The measure, which may be voted on this week, would prohibit schools from spending public funds on books or other materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.

“This is not about hate,” said the sponsor, Rep. Gerald Allen. “This is about our culture being under attack.”

Todd disagreed, telling the House Education Committee: “We are your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles. We go to church with you. And the message I get from you is: ‘We hate you.”‘

Overseas developments also elicited mixed emotions. In predominantly Roman Catholic Spain, the lower house of Parliament approved the Socialist government’s gay marriage bill. It would make Spain the third European country to legalize same-sex marriages, along with Belgium and the Netherlands.

That vote came two days after the election of the new pope, Benedict XVI, who as a cardinal was the Vatican’s leading enforcer of doctrine frowning on homosexual relationships and same-sex unions.

“His record on lesbian/gay issues has been notoriously insensitive,” said Francis DiBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based group working to increase acceptance of gays within the Catholic Church. “We hope and pray he will open his ears and his heart to the cries of so many who have been hurt by his previous policies. “