As governor Romney proposed a compromise on civil unions.
He of course withdrew it rather quickly.
Actually, the Civil Union compromise I think became a part of the gay marriage amendment. That wasn’t what people complained about.
The next year the legislature, seeking to delay the amendment, proposed CHANGING it to remove the civil unions (not because they wanted to get rid of them, but because it would then take another year for another vote since they would have changed the language). Romney opposed that, and some people used that opposition to claim he was FOR civil unions.
In the end, the amendment was rejected by the overwhelmingly pro-gay-marriage legislature.
Thus proving that if the court really REQUIRED that the state legislature pass a new law for gay marraige, the state legislature would have easily done so. They got 75% of their ranks to oppose letting the people vote on the gay marriage amendment, so they easily could have gotten 50% to vote for gay marriage.