BOSTON—A man who filed a lawsuit claiming he failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a "morally repugnant" question about same-sex marriage says he has since changed his views on gay rights.

more stories like this"After speaking with numerous members of the gay community, including my own friends, I began to empathize with their denial of basic human rights and how they feel discriminated against," Stephen Dunne said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Dunne, an Irish immigrant who first came to the United States in 1998, said the change also was prompted in part by racism the Irish once faced in the U.S., his six-year stint in the Army and the war in Iraq.

"Members of the gay community are in combat and dying for their country and yet they're being denied the basic human rights they are fighting for," he said.

Dunne first apologized for being an "instrument of bigotry and prejudice" in an e-mail published in the Jan. 3 edition of Bay Windows, a weekly Boston newspaper aimed at the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

In the letter, he said his "misguided" lawsuit "regrettably perpetuated intolerance and animosity towards my fellow Americans."

Dunne, 31, was denied a license to practice law in May after scoring 268.866 on the exam, just short of the passing mark of 270. He sought $9.75 million in the federal lawsuit filed in June against the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Dunne said his score was hurt because he refused to answer an exam question addressing the rights of two married lesbians, their children and their property during a divorce. He said the question legitimized same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting, contrary to his moral beliefs.

He called the question a "disguised mechanism to screen applicants according to their political ideology" and said it "has the discriminatory impact of persecuting and oppressing sincere religious practices and beliefs" protected by the First Amendment.

The suit also challenged the constitutionality of the Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 decision that made same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts.

But in October, Dunne, who represented himself in the case, asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, saying in a motion that "defendants have removed the patently offensive and morally repugnant question" from the exam.

It was unclear whether the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners removed the question because of the lawsuit, and the board did not return messages left Thursday for comment.

Dunne, who is Roman Catholic, said Thursday he no longer found the question objectionable, and still considers himself deeply religious.

"Christ said 'Love all, serve all,' " he said. "It was a message of inclusion rather than exclusion."

Editors at Bay Windows at first were skeptical when they received the e-mail, said Susan Ryan-Vollmar, the paper's editor in chief.

"To be honest, we thought it might be a prank because it's very unusual for somebody who did something along these lines to apologize so publicly," she said.

After verifying the e-mail's authenticity, a reporter conducted a lengthy interview with Dunne that the paper ran in conjunction with the letter.
Man who sued over gay marriage question on bar exam apologizes - Boston.com
Yowza.
Pretty impressive, but that's what happens when people stop listening to the "Save the Children" and "Threat to Marriage" crap, and start actually THINKING about the world, and SEEING what gay people are actually like.
And what we go to compared to what we are denied....

Or maybe he just doesn't want to end up like this guy..
Windy City Times - Allstate Employee Allegedly Fired for Anti-Gay Online Essay
J. Matt Barber, a born-again Christian from Villa Park, claims that, in December 2004, his employers at Allstate Corp. suspended him without pay and had him escorted from the company grounds in Northbrook after he wrote an online essay condemning same-sex marriage, according to an item in the Chicago Tribune. Allstate fired Barber three days later. The issue has lit a fire under conservatives. Christian groups have protested Barber’s fate on Web sites and in newsletters, generating what they claim are more than 240,000 e-mails and an unknown number of phone calls to Allstate. Barber filed a lawsuit in May in federal court in Chicago alleging that Allstate’s action constituted discrimination on the basis of religion, a contention some legal pundits are calling original. Barber’s representative is David Gibbs III of the Florida-based Christian Law Association, which represented Terri Schiavo’s parents in their high-profile efforts to prevent her feeding tube from being removed.

In court documents, Allstate said Barber was not fired for his beliefs, but for using company resources for his personal activities.

Company spokesman Michael Trevino said that Allstate has never terminated an employee for expressing his or her personal views away from the office. Barber said he wrote the articles at home but admitted that he sometimes sent personal e-mails, including some related to his writing, from his company laptop. Barber also stated that he made no more personal use of his laptop than his co-workers did.


Folk gotta have a job. We all have to eat.

__________________
Even if you hold the minority opinion, stick to your guns and go against the flow if that's what you truly believe. (CnRedd)

This is what happens when people start to think things through.

Good for him. It will make him a better lawyer when he DOES pass the bar exam.

I have yet to see exactly what someone has to think about. Nothing has changed that makes homosexuality any different than it always has been. It's a shame people have to suspend their common sense to make a living in the world today.

__________________
Even if you hold the minority opinion, stick to your guns and go against the flow if that's what you truly believe. (CnRedd)

I agree completely.

There were a couple of things about his law-suit which I found amusing.

1) The "thinking" behind it could be used by anybody whose religion SUPPORTS gay marriage to sue the state that forbids legal recognition of it.
If he is discriminated against because he doesn't believe in gay marriage, and the state does and requires him to acknowledge the legal status in his endeavors for a legal license,
then obviously somebody who DOES believe in gay marriage is likewise discriminated against when the state requires him to acknowledge that gays have no legal status.

2) The actual issue at hand is an acknowledgement of the existing law. One quote I saw clearly stated that it was a simple matter of acknowledging what the law SAYS, then you get your license, and then you get the capability to get out there and change it.
By analogy, if I were in college taking a test in Physics and I disagreed with the test question, it would be absurd of me to insist that I shouldn't answer it because I didn't agree with it. The professor would rightfully count off on that question for my refusal.


And as a side-note, I see "some" people are still running around trying to derail the discussion. To change the topic.
Suddenly trying to make the issue about firing somebody because they wrote an anti-gay article, or similar non-topical nonsense.
The capability to create other threads DOES exist...

All-state was patently wrong to terminate this gentleman over his views expressed away from work. They may be repulsive to most civil people, but they are still his right to express in an appropriate venue.

The guy from All-State should have known better than to be sending 'personal' emails from his work computer.

__________________

This lawsuit is crap...

If he was smart, what he should've done as required to get INTO the bar, THEN work to change the exam itself...

It's like when the Mayor of San Francisco started handing out marriage licenses to gays and had to be stopped because of the law...It's the attitude of "I don't like the way things are done, so I'm gonna pretend it doesn't exist.:...

As "morally repugnant" one may find something, the WRONG WAY to go about changing it is to not subversion...The reaction ends up being even more morally repugnant than the reason for the reaction...

And if people decided not to do things everytime they thought something morally repugnant, there'd be complate anarchy...

__________________
"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Yes, it's always been perfectly natural, is not intrinsically harmfull in any way, and only really affects those similarly hardwired.

Glad we agree.

I skimmed the article, partially cause I thought I previously read the story.
He should not be fired for online articles...
... but if he used the company's resources and time (etc...), tell him he can do it on his own time and dime...