Massachusetts Court
Limits Same-Sex Marriages
By PAM BELLUCK,
NYTimes on the Web, March 30, 2006
BOSTON, — Massachusetts's
highest court ruled today that same-sex couples who live in other states cannot
get married in Massachusetts unless gay marriage is legal in their home states.
In an opinion written by Justice Francis X. Spina, the court upheld a 1913
statute that says that no out-of-state resident can get married in Massachusetts
if the marriage would be void in the person's home state, unless the person
intends to live in Massachusetts. Five justices concurred, at least in
part, with Justice Spina's opinion; one justice dissented.
"The laws of this commonwealth have not endowed nonresidents with an unfettered
right to marry," Justice Spina wrote for the majority. "To the contrary,
the rights of nonresidents to marry in Massachusetts have been specifically
restricted."
He added, "I recognize that the brunt" of the law's impact "has inevitably
fallen disproportionately on nonresident same-sex couples rather than on
nonresident opposite-sex couples" because no other state currently allows gay
marriage.
However, he said, the fact that the court had ruled in November 2003 that
Massachusetts same-sex couples should be allowed to marry "does not now compel a
conclusion that nonresident same-sex couples, who have no intention of living in
Massachusetts, have an identical right to secure a marriage license that they
could not otherwise obtain in their home states."
The original lawsuit was filed by eight out-of-state couples and 12 cities and
towns, claiming the 1913 statute was discriminatory and had been invalidated by
the legalization of gay marriage in the state.
In its decision, the court denied the claims of all but the couples from New
York and Rhode Island, because laws in those states have not specifically
outlawed said gay marriage.
The high court sent those cases back to the superior court judge who had
originally denied them, asking the judge to determine whether same-sex marriage
is allowed in those states.
The case began after gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in May 2004.
Gov. Mitt Romney, a gay marriage opponent, invoked the 1913 statute, which had
been originally adopted in part to block interracial marriages. Mr. Romney
refused to record marriages of out-of-state same-sex couples, saying
"Massachusetts should not become the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage."
On Thursday, Mr. Romney said in an interview: "This is an important
victory for traditional marriage and for the right to each state to be sovereign
as it defines marriage. It would have been wrong for this court to impose
it's same sex ruling on the other 49 states of America."
Only one justice, Roderick L. Ireland, dissented, writing that "the
commonwealth's resurrection of a moribund statute to deny nonresident same-sex
couples access to marriage is not only troubling," but "also is fundamentally
unfair."
Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall concurred with much of the Justice Spina's
opinion, but said that same-sex couples "who reside in states where they are not
expressly prohibited from marrying by statute, constitutional amendment, or
controlling appellate court decision, be permitted, at the very least, to
present evidence to rebut the commonwealth's claim that their home state would
prohibit their marriage."
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