The Legislature narrowly voted Wednesday to recess its constitutional convention rather than deal with an amendment banning gay marriage.

The move angered supporters of the ban, who said lawmakers tried to kill the measure without voting on it.

The amendment to ban future gay marriages came before the Legislature after citizens gathered signatures to put it on the ballot.

The petition first needs the sup port of 25 percent of the Legisla ture in two consecutive sessions.

State Rep. John Lepper, RAttleboro, said the Legislature was failing to do its duty of addressing the petition. `` They have violated their oath of office,'' Lepper said of his colleagues, who voted to recess until Nov. 9, two days after the general election. Lepper said the state constitu tion says the Legislature `` shall'' deal with citizen petitions for con stitutional amendments, and the Legislature is ignoring that.

He and other area Republicans predicted that the Democratic leadership on Beacon Hill will never reconvene the convention so the matter can be dealt with.

`` Don't be snowed by this. This is part of a plan,'' he said.

State Rep. Betty Poirier, R-North Attleboro, predicted that once supporters of gay marriage are safely re-elected, they will adjourn or boycott the Nov. 9 session so the ban cannot be voted on.

`` We'll never meet Nov. 9. They are not going to allow a vote,'' she said.

`` This is a dark day at the Statehouse. I'm just so discouraged and disgusted that the will of the people has been thwarted,'' she said.

State Rep. Richard Ross, R-Wrentham, said he believes the constitutional amendment may be `` dead.''

But proponents of the delay said they were not trying to prevent a vote, only postpone it to allow time to show that gay marriage is working in Massachusetts.

`` We now have four more months to show legislators how well marriage equality is working in Massachusetts. We hope they will see that Massachusetts is ready to move on,'' said Marc Solomon, campaign director for the gay rights group MassEquality.

Every local legislator voted against the recess, but it prevailed on an unexpectedly close 100-91 vote. The recess proposal actually lost in the House, but when combined with Senate votes, it passed by a margin of nine.

State Sen. James Timilty, D-Walpole, was one of the few Democratic senators to vote against the recess proposal.

He said he opposed the ban on gay marriage, but believes it deserves a vote.

`` So much time and energy has been spent on this, I agree it should come before us for a yea or nay vote,'' he said.

Timilty also said he suspects a vote in November would end with the same result as a vote today, so the Legislature should just deal with it.

JIM HAND can be reached at 508-236-0399 or at jhand@thesunchronicle.com.