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THE WILD CARD in the attempt by Governor Mitt Romney, House Speaker Tom Finneran, and Senate president Robert Travaglini to change the state constitution to bar gay marriage is the fact that — as Barrios noted — same-sex couples will be able to marry legally come May 17. State Representative Byron Rushing of the South End believes that simple fact is going to change the parameters of the debate. As he left the House chamber after Monday’s final vote, he addressed a horde of reporters: "On May 18, I will wake up and see that the sun has risen. On May 18, I will open up my refrigerator and find that the milk has not curdled."

In other words, Massachusetts residents are going to see that the world has not changed just because gay and lesbian couples are able to wed. Once that happens, Rushing and others say, the heated controversy will cool. And efforts to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage will falter.

The day after the ConCon, it became obvious that Romney — who’s made it clear that he would like to prevent same-sex marriages from taking place until the constitutional-amendment process has run its course — cannot prevent marriage licenses from being given to gay and lesbian couples in May. Attorney General Tom Reilly has twice rebuffed Romney’s request that Reilly argue for a two-and-a-half-year stay of the SJC’s ruling.

Romney made his first request immediately after the final vote. But the attorney general dismissed it by saying that it had no legal basis because the SJC has ruled twice that barring gay and lesbian couples from civil marriage is unconstitutional. Romney made his second request on Tuesday. This time, he asked the attorney general in a letter to "appoint a Special Assistant Attorney General ... to represent the interests of the people of Massachusetts." Once again, Reilly rejected Romney’s call. As Reilly explained in a State House press conference on Tuesday afternoon, "Whether the governor likes it or not, whether I agree with the decision or not, the plaintiffs have won, and they are entitled to their rights." He added that Romney’s rationale for requesting the stay was rooted in political reasoning, not legal analysis: "The governor is free to make those arguments to the body politic, but I will not permit him to make these political arguments in a court of law."

There’s no question that Romney is playing politics. Just three hours before the governor’s high-profile announcement on Monday, Ron Crews, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) and a spokesperson for the Coalition for Marriage, the anti-gay-marriage umbrella organization in this state, had suggested to reporters that the opposition’s "first priority" after the ConCon would be to "call on the governor to take action under his authority to preserve marriage," defined as the union of one man and one woman. Clearly, Romney heard the call.

Not that he can do anything about it now. The Attorney General’s Office is the only entity that can represent the governor before the SJC. So as long as Reilly holds his ground on the issue, the governor’s options, as Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s communications director, said on Tuesday, are "extremely limited."

At another press conference that same day, GLAD’s Bonauto, flanked by six legislators who support full equality for same-sex couples, praised Reilly’s decision and reiterated that the Massachusetts public will not be harmed if gay and lesbian couples are allowed to marry, despite ongoing attempts to amend the constitution to ban such unions. Same-sex couples, on the other hand, would be. As the SJC’s November 18 ruling has already pointed out, the denial of marriage licenses to such couples has created a "deep and scarring result."

WHEN STATE Representative Ellen Story of Amherst took center stage at the March 29 post-ConCon rally — which lasted for 90 minutes and saw 24 legislators address the crowd — she articulated what many among the pro-gay-marriage forces consider to be the "bright side" of the legislature’s action this week. As she explained to the highly responsive crowd, "No one actually wants this civil-unions compromise!" And this, she added, could make for the amendment’s ultimate demise.

Hours before Story even uttered these words, it had become apparent that support for the current amendment is decidedly lukewarm. On Monday afternoon, as the ConCon began a countdown to the final vote, Taunton representative James Fagan was one of only two legislators to take the podium on the House floor and urge colleagues to back the amendment — but not because he was satisfied with it. Preferring a simple ban on same-sex marriage, Fagan called the current language "lousy." He said, "This amendment stinks. But at least it gives the people a chance to vote for something."

Just outside the House chamber, the MFI’s Crews was admitting to reporters that the current amendment "was not at all what we wanted." Opponents had worked hard to kill any language establishing civil unions. Instead, they had lobbied for a "clear-cut amendment" defining marriage as one man and one woman. So three hours later, when the final vote was cast, all Crews had to say about the amendment’s passage was that it marked a "meager victory."

All the more meager, it seems, since advocates on both sides had predicted an easy and sure win for the original anti-gay-marriage amendment proposed by Travis. At the ConCon’s start on February 11, Travis even grumbled from the podium that if Senate president Travaglini would only call for a vote on his amendment, it would win handily. Opponents, as State Senator Stan Rosenberg pointed out to the crowd at the post-ConCon rally, "didn’t even have February 12 in mind."

Standing before the hundreds of activists — their numbers barely diminished even after an hour of thank-you speeches from legislators — Rosenberg outlined the "victory" on the pro-gay-marriage side: momentum. On the morning of the ConCon’s first day, he recounted to the crowd, he and seven other legislators who support full equality for gay and lesbian couples met in the office of Senator Barrios. "We knew we were up against some powerful forces," he said. But the group dedicated themselves to "outsmarting, outworking, and outmaneuvering our opponents." And within 48 hours, the number of legislators who stood with the pro-gay-marriage forces had increased from eight to 55. One month later, on March 11, that number had grown to 77. "Now," Rosenberg told the crowd, "it’s at 92. Now, when we come back next session, all we need to win is five more votes" — prompting the activists to chant: "Five more votes! Five more votes! Five more votes!"

And that’s something that very few pro-gay-marriage advocates would have believed even a month ago.

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com