New Mass. Law Lets Out-of-State Same-Sex Couples Marry

BOSTON — Gay and lesbian couples from Connecticut and other states are now free to marry at Massachusetts.Massachusetts’ governor, Deval Patrick signed a bill today repealing a 1913 law that barred couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their union would not be valid in their own states. Connecticut allows civil unions.Massachusetts has allowed gay marriages since 2004, but the move to repeal the law makes the state equal with California, which recently became the only other state to legalize gay marriage and has no residency requirement.Out-of-state gay couples can marry as soon as today, since lawmakers included a provision to make the repeal go into effect immediately.At Massachusetts, there is a standard three-day waiting period after applying for a license, but any couple can petition a court for a waiver — something gay couples in-state did by the hundreds when the first legal gay marriages in the nation were performed in May 2004.“We’re being recognized as a married couple,” said Joy Spring, of Middletown, N.Y., who planned to marry her partner of seven years, Carla Barbano, at Provincetown on Tomorrow.Their 11-year-old daughter, Lizzy, will exchange rings with the couple at the wedding.“It’s extremely important,” Ms. Spring said. “If something happened to one of us she’d always be taken care of.”Mark Pearsall and Paul Trubey of Lebanon, Conn., were among eight gay couples from surrounding states who challenged the 1913 law in Massachusetts courts. The two got married at Massachusetts in 2004 just before Governor Mitt Romney closed the door on out-of-state gay couples.Gay rights supporters have said that they doubt many same-sex couples from Connecticut will opt to marry at Massachusetts. They said Connecticut has a civil unions law, and the state Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a lawsuit that could make gay marriage legal at the Nutmeg State.Mr. Patrick, Massachusetts’ first black governor, said he was proud to supported repeal of the law, which he said had its roots in racism. It was first passed 95 years ago as states tried to prevent interracial marriages.He said the repeal shows that in Massachusetts, “equal means equal.”“In five years now, … the sky has not fallen, the earth has not opened to swallow us all up, and more to the point, thousands and thousands of good people — contributing members of our society — are able to make free decisions about their personal future, and we ought to seek to affirm that every chance we can,” said Mr. Patrick, whose 18-year-old daughter revealed recently she is a lesbian.Opponents said repealing the law would make Massachusetts the “Las Vegas of gay marriage” and would infringe on other states’ rights to define marriage.Supporters said it will bring an economic boon.A state study estimates that more than 30,000 out-of-state gay couples — most of them from New York — will wed in Massachusetts over the next three years. That would boost the state’s economy by $111 million and create 330 jobs, the study estimated.City and town clerks anticipate an uptick in applications in communities bordering Massachusetts, mostly for reasons of convenience.Anyone wanting to get married must fill out a one-page “intention to marry” form, asking for their contact information and whether they have been married before. The form, used since October 2005, also asks where they currently live and plan to live once married, which has been vehicle by which clerks have previously been able to block out-of-state couples from obtaining a marriage license.The license is good anywhere in Massachusetts, so an out-of-state gay couple living elsewhere at New York or New England could apply in a border community and then marry anywhere in the state.

New Mass. Law Lets Out-of-State Same-Sex Couples Marry

New Mass. Law Lets Out-of-State Same-Sex Couples Marry

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