Mass. Legislature to Vote on Law Allowing Out-of-State Gays to Wed

by Finding Dulcinea    July 14, 2008

Posted by Rachel Balik to FindingDulcinea.com

The Massachusetts Senate and House will vote this week on a 1913 state law that prevents nonresidents from marrying there.

In 1913, the state of Massachusetts wrote a chapter into its marriage law designed to prevent interracial couples from coming to Massachusetts to marry and then returning to their home state. The Chapter reads, “No marriage shall be contracted in this commonwealth by a party residing and intending to continue to reside in another jurisdiction if such marriage would be void if contracted in such other jurisdiction, and every marriage contracted in this commonwealth in violation hereof shall be null and void.”

Although the law was essentially ignored for years, Gov. Mitt Romney resurfaced it after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2003. A few couples were able to marry in Massachusetts before anyone took notice, but the couples that were prevented took their case to the state Supreme Court. In 2006, the court ruled to uphold the law. A married gay man from Connecticut found the legitimacy of his marriage uncertain: “It seems to me that it’s a statement that’s not really based around any sense of humanity, but really on a sense of politics, which is really not a fair way to treat people.”

This week, the state legislature will have the chance to overturn the law by a two-thirds majority. Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who is spearheading the reversal, said, “It is time for this to be erased from the annals of Massachusetts law.” A fair number of legislators are against the move, but a spokesperson for Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick said, “The governor supports the repeal of the law and will sign it if passed.”

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