The Massachusetts Ruling
BOSTON - In a disappointment for the gay rights movement, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday that same-sex couples from states where gay marriage is prohibited cannot tie the knot in Massachusetts.
Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican who is a considering a run for president in 2008, welcomed the decision, saying he did not want Massachusetts to become “the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage.”
The Supreme Judicial Court upheld a 1913 state law that forbids nonresidents to marry in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be recognized in their home state.
If the court had struck down the law, Massachusetts would have been thrown open to gay couples from across the country to get married. Then they could have returned to their home states to fight for legal recognition for those marriages. (source)
This of course is all based on a 1913 law (that was never enforced) to prevent mixed-race marriages from taking place. It was wrong to draft the law then, and it is wrong to brush the dust off off it now to enforce against gay couples. The legal issue is that the law was created for a very different purpose. And almost a century later, it is being used to keep a different type of couple from gaining access to marriage.
I’m not sure which is more shameful for Massachusetts... the fact that they kept the law on the books all these years and now chose to enforce it, or the fact that the state has failed to enforce the concept of equality of ALL CITIZENS.
As for me, I write about this - really as a public record that I acknowledged it. Emotionally, I’ve given up a lot of emotional baggage on this issue. Much of it I no longer care about, I suppose because I don’t feel that I will live long enough to realize equality.
That being said, it doesn’t have to ruin everything. And I’m not going to let it. This is the world we live in.
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I agree, but the ruling will not erase the shameful meaning of this law and the fact that it was allowed to exist for all these years, after people had supposedly became more "enlightened".
That being said, you are right about the judges. Their ruling was on the constitutionality of the law - not ruling on the merits, or lack thereof, of the law.
Had they defeated the law, all that would happen is that gay couples would flock to Massachusetts, get married, and go back home and demand that their home state honor that marriage. They would in some cases come upon a state constitution that would ban the marriage, and this would go on for years in challenges. In other cases, it would have spurred the other states to quickly pass constitutional amendments to prohibit gay marriage. So, this really changes nothing.
My comments on this were merely judging the 1913 law on it's lack of any social merit.
The Supreme Judicial Court's job was to judge the law on constitutional merit. They ruled that the law passed that test. I don't disagree with that.
Although... I am a bit surprised that they didn't have an issue with the fact that the law is being (conveniently) enforced for a different purpose from it's original purpose.
"Besides, if a couple really really wants to get married, they can move to Massachussets for three months (yes, it's a sacrifice) and get married."
And then what? When we move back to Connecticut, the marriage would not exist. Connecticut has within it's civil union law an amendment that defines "marriage" as "one man, one woman". The marriage would not be honored, as is the case with most states now. If the "sacrifice" would actually work, we'd do it for the protections that marriage offers. And not even that matters so much at this point. The big ticket items, social security survivor benefits, etc. etc.... exist at the Federal level.
The job of the judges was to interpret the law, not to decide whether it was a good law or a shameful law.
That being said, much good is coming out of the ruling. Couples from states that do not explicitly forbit same sex marriage can still have a claim for marriage. Besides, if a couple really really wants to get married, they can move to Massachussets for three months (yes, it's a sacrifice) and get married.
Dan