St. Fleur said she faced "a lot of anger" in her parish, and that some people placed "nasty" telephone calls to her home. Walsh talked about her difficult campaign for reelection in a socially conservative, heavily Catholic district.

"There were people whom I have known since I walked into that parish at 7 years of age, who could not understand how at this age I was moving away from all that I was born and raised [to believe]," St. Fleur said. "But I came to understand that I was not moving away, but was in fact affirming all that I had learned in all those CCD classes, and that it is one thing to read it in the Bible, one thing to go through the sacraments, but it is another thing to stand up and really support and demonstrate that the Bible too is a living word, just as the Constitution."

St. Fleur, who worships at Holy Family Parish in Dorchester, said she believes the disappointment and anger expressed by her fellow parishioners has largely passed, and she said she feels comfortable worshiping there.

"I don't think some will ever understand why I've come to the decision I've come to, but I think they respect that, for me, it's coming from a place of faith," she said in an interview after the ceremony. "I absolutely see myself as a faithful Catholic, but all that I've been taught as a Catholic suggests I am supposed to embrace people who are different, and particularly those who are marginalized. I didn't ever see my faith as one that taught me to ostracize people because they were different from me."

Walsh, who has traditionally supported the Catholic Church on many of its legislative positions, said that when she was confronted with the gay marriage issue, "it was obvious to me that morally, this is the right thing to do, not as a legislator, but as a person, because all people are created equal, and God didn't make any mistakes. . . . We are all made in God's image and likeness."

Walsh said, however, that she paid a political price for her position, which she described as "very unpopular in my district." Faced with a vigorous challenge to her reelection last fall from a candidate who opposed same-sex marriage, Walsh said she held 62 coffee hours in 10 weeks, held two to three fund-raisers a week, and spent 20 to 25 hours a week knocking on doors. Walsh was reelected with 64 percent of the vote.

"My faith is really what gave me so much of the clarity and confidence to give witness to Christ," Walsh said in an interview after the ceremony. "Christ made all people equally, and some of different orientation."

O'Malley, an opponent of same-sex marriage, declined yesterday to respond to St. Fleur and Walsh. Walsh and St. Fleur spoke at the State House. The Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, which is a seven-year-old organization, claims 600 clergy and congregations as members. The organization's leaders estimated that 4,000 same-sex couples have wed in Massachusetts since such marriages became legal in May.

They were recognized "for their outstanding leadership in upholding the religious freedom of every citizen in the Commonwealth by supporting marriage equality as a civil right."

The organization also honored Episcopal Bishop M. Thomas Shaw for his active support of legalizing same-sex marriage even though his own denomination defines marriage as heterosexual. Shaw told the group that he plans to launch an effort to change the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church USA to allow same-sex marriage.

The group recognized Rabbi Daniel Judson, of Temple Beth David of the South Shore in Canton, for his decision to purchase a newspaper ad featuring the names of about 100 rabbis who support same-sex marriage, a step he said he took because he was upset about what he perceived as excessive news media attention to the opposition to same-sex marriage by Catholic church officials and evangelical Protestants.

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