04.08.07

MA Gunning To Be the “Las Vegas of Gay Marriage” - Woo!

Posted in civil liberties, gay rights at 7:53 pm by misstyrios

I have no problem expressing my deep disdain for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. He ridiculed the state while he was supposed to be running it, focused from the beginning on becoming President (don’t even get me started on the fact that he’s actually raising a lot of damn money in that pathetic pursuit). One of the things that angered me the most about his reign was his resurrection of a 1913 law that prohibited couples from getting married in Massachusetts if their marriage would be void in their home state. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the law was originally meant to prevent inter-racial marriages, but that shameful discriminatory origin was meant nothing to Mitt, who churned it up to prevent non-Massachusetts-based gay couples from getting married here. He stated that such a thing would mean that Massachusetts would become the “Las Vegas of gay marriages.” He meant this derisively of course, but I can think of few taglines for this state that would make me prouder. In fact, I want a license plate slogan reading just that.

Thankfully, we actually voted in a governor who supports things like, oh, civil rights. And Governor Deval Patrick (who has had my support from the beginning) announced that he wants the pesky old law repealed.

“I know that the 1913 law has sort of smelly origins,” Patrick said. “I think it’s outdated. If it passes the Legislature and comes to my desk, I’ll sign it.”

[…]

Gay activists concede they have a good chance of repealing the 1913 law, but say they are focusing first on defeating the proposed constitutional amendment barring gay marriage.

Oh yeah. We still have to contend with the fact that the last legislative session voted to allow a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the ballot. Of course, they did this under pressure from Ole Mitt, who actually sued the Legislature and asked the Supreme Judicial Court to force them to vote, creating a potentially messy separation of powers clusterfuck. While the SJC obviously said it couldn’t force the legislature to do anything (hello middle school civics), it did shame them into voting. And that vote result was shameful. In order to actually put the ban question on the 2008 ballot, it needs to pass in this session of the legislature as well - so hopefully, it will not.

Repealing this 1913 law would not be a mere symbolic victory, as it could allow couples who marry here to go back to their own states and sue for recognition, forcing the issue to the courts. Some gay marriage opponents apparently see causing “legal chaos” at the top of the gay agenda:

The vast number of states already have laws or constitutional amendments specifically barring same sex marriages. A marriage certificate might let a couple mount a legal challenge, but there’s no guarantee the marriage would be recognized.

That kind of legal chaos is a good argument to keep the 1913 law in place, according to Brian Camenker, leader of MassResistance, a group opposed to gay marriage.

“The whole reason that the gay lobby wants this overturned is for that reason, so they can disrupt the whole situation regarding marriage in other states and cause as much trouble as they can across the country,” he said.

And to that, I laugh. Quite a lot.

Viva Las Gay Marriages!

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