Massachusetts Senate vote aids gay ‘marriages’

The Massachusetts state Senate yesterday voted overwhelmingly to repeal the 1913 law that Gov. Mitt Romney says forbids out-of-state homosexual couples from “marrying” in Massachusetts.

The repeal was approved 28-3 as part of the Senate version of the state budget. To take effect, however, the repeal must pass the more conservative House and then both chambers would have to override the veto that Mr. Romney has promised.

A Romney spokesman said the Senate vote proves “what has been obvious to us all along.”

“This law is not Governor Romney’s invention,” Eric Fehrnstrom said. “This is the law of the land, and the governor cannot pick and choose which laws to enforce.”

On Monday, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex “marriage,” based on the state Supreme Judicial Court’s 2003 Goodridge decision, which struck down the state’s marriage requirement of a man and a woman as discrimination.

As lawyers scoured Massachusetts’ marriage laws in light of Goodridge, questions soon arose about a 1913 residency law, which says: “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.”

Mr. Romney and Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly both say the law forbids out-of-state homosexuals from getting a marriage license in Massachusetts because no other state recognizes same-sex “marriage.”

Mr. Romney also has said that licenses issued to out-of-state homosexual couples will be annulled and that legal action might be taken against officials who issued them.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney confirmed that four Massachusetts towns have been asked to send their marriage documents for same-sex couples to the governor’s office immediately.

The governor’s office will review the forms and decide what to do concerning their registration, Shawn Feddeman said.

“At this point, we are collecting the information, and no decisions have been made on where to go from here,” she said.

Worcester, Provincetown, Springfield and Somerville town officials say they are “marrying” out-of-state couples if the couples sign documents saying they know of no reason that they can’t “marry” at home.

Newspaper stories from this week’s “marriage” celebrations include quotes from jubilant same-sex couples from Alabama, New Mexico and numerous other states.

Officials in the four towns and cities said they were cooperating with Mr. Romney’s request.

“This is the first step toward something, that’s for sure,” said Provincetown Town Manager Keith Bergman, who estimated that almost one-third of the 152 licenses filed in his town Monday were for out-of-state couples.

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