News
2006-06-27
Massachusetts
court to reconsider legality of marriage for out-of-state
couples
Can same-sex
couples from Rhode Island marry in Massachusetts?
The q
The question of
whether same-sex couples from Rhode Island can marry in
Massachusetts returns to court Monday. An
anti-interracial-marriage law dating back to 1913 was
recently upheld by the state’s supreme judicial
court in a case involving gay and lesbian couples from other
states wishing to marry in Massachusetts.
The antiquated
law says that marriage licenses cannot be given to
out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal
in their home states, but following a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling that laws barring interracial couples
from marrying were illegal, the Massachusetts statute
fell into disuse.
After same-sex
marriage became legal in Massachusetts, however,
Republican governor Mitt Romney resurrected the old law to
order local clerks not to issue marriage licenses to
couples from outside the state. In upholding the law
in March, the state supreme judicial court noted
that all the states from which the appellants came, with the
exception of Rhode Island, have laws specifically banning
same-sex marriage and that in the case of couples from
Rhode Island, the matter should return to the lower
court for a ruling.
Whatever that
court rules, the decision is expected to be appealed and
will likely wind up again before the supreme judicial court.
(Sirius OutQ News)
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