WASHINGTON (AP) – Rep. Barney Frank sees an “angry, divisive” fight ahead for Massachusetts if a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage reaches the 2008 state ballot.

The Congress member blamed backers of the initiative petition for trying to provoke a new fight despite a lack of controversy over same-sex marriage.

“Basically, they’re the disturbers of the civic peace,” the Democrat said in a wide-ranging Associated Press interview. “We now have social peace in Massachusetts. They’re the ones who want to stir it up … This is a non-issue in Massachusetts.”

The Massachusetts Family Institute said the 124,000 certified signatures it gathered for the petition, nearly double the number required, was a sign of strong public support for outlawing same-sex marriage.

“All they want is an opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage,” said the group’s president, Kris Mineau. “Now that the people have spoken, the good congressman has decided this is a divisive issue.”

Before the amendment can be placed on the state ballot, it must be approved by at least 50 lawmakers during two separate sessions of the Legislature.

“I think by 2008, people will say, ‘Do we really need to have an angry, divisive debate over a non-issue,’” Frank said. “The question for the 50 legislators is: Do they want to make this a front-page issue again, leading the TV news?”

Amendment supporters want to overturn a 2003 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that said denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples was unconstitutional. State-approved same-sex marriages began May 17, 2004.

Relaxing in his Capitol Hill office and wearing a dark blue polo shirt during the congressional holiday break, Frank, 65, also spoke about his personal and political future.

He said he plans to retire from Congress before his health starts to fail him. He wants to avoid becoming a public spectacle.

“I’m not going to get old in public,” he said. “I’ve seen some great men, literally great men, deteriorate in public view … I don’t think you should do that.”

Once he leaves politics, Frank wants to write books about issues such as capitalism, the legislative process and democracy.

“One goal is to retire early enough to write some books,” he said. “I wish I could write more fluidly than I do. I can still talk a lot more easily than I write.”