Same-sex couples applaud repeal
Mass. opens door for out-of-state gays to marry
Darin Johnson and Greg Keffer have made all the arrangements for their wedding this month in Provincetown: a clambake and bonfire, dinner at a country inn, live band, and a cruise on a schooner for 50 friends and relatives.
Now the couple from New York City can add something else to make the whole event official: a marriage license from the state of Massachusetts. Yesterday, Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill repealing a 1913 law that prevented Massachusetts from marrying out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states.
The repeal drew condemnation from opponents of same-sex marriage, who predicted that the change would prompt same-sex couples from other states to marry here and demand that their home states recognize their unions, creating legal chaos. Gay rights activists and same-sex couples celebrated the repeal, saying it was an important step on the path to equality.
"Being a 37-year old gay man, there was never a moment when I thought I would have the opportunity to be married, so I'm overwhelmed," said Johnson, who works for the New York Restoration Project, an environmental group. "Four weeks from Sunday, I'm going to be able to walk down the aisle, look the person in the eyes who is my soul mate, and have my family and friends be there, and say, 'I do.' "
The repeal, which makes Massachusetts the second state after California to allow out-of-state same-sex couples to marry, is expected to draw thousands to the state. A recent study the Patrick administration commissioned estimated that 32,200 couples would come to Massachusetts to marry in the next three years, creating 330 jobs and adding $111 million to the economy.
Just yesterday, the Provincetown clerk's office fielded about a dozen inquiries from out-of-state couples interested in marrying.
Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2004, six months after a landmark court decision. The state, however, barred out-of-state couples from marrying here if their home state did not recognize gay marriage. Some couples, however, defied the order by telling city and town clerks that they intended to be Massachusetts residents, even if they had no such plans. Johnson and Keffer, for instance, had planned to obtain a license by stating their intention to live in Provincetown - at some point. Now, Johnson said, they will not have to worry that their marriage license could some day be nullified if the state discovered that they were not living in Massachusetts.
"That was always the question," Johnson said. "Now, no couple has to be put in that position."
Opponents of same-sex marriage say that as couples return home with marriage licenses, it will impose Massachusetts' liberal values on unwilling states. Governor Mitt Romney warned in 2004 that Massachusetts would become the "Las Vegas of same-sex marriage" if the law was repealed. Forty-six states ban gay marriage by law, court decision, or constitutional amendment, according to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, an organization based in Boston.
"The door has been opened to export same-sex marriage to other parts of the country," said Mathew D. Staver, dean of the Liberty University Law School, the Baptist institution founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Va. "This takes the dam away from the border holding back same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and releases it across the country."
Michele Granda, staff attorney at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, downplayed the specter of lawsuits. The repeal, she said, was passed "simply to make sure that when out-of-state couples come to Massachusetts, they're going to able to participate in our state's principles of equality and fairness."
"States are going to have to sort this out over time," she added, "but there's nothing about same-sex couples that creates a new paradigm."
Patrick echoed the sentiment.
"I think other states will make their own judgments, and I expect them to - that's their own business," he said after signing the repeal. "All we can do is tend our own garden, and make sure that it's weeded, and I think we've weeded out a discriminatory law that we should have."
Gay rights activists said the law had racist roots in the national backlash following boxer Jack Johnson's marriage to a white woman in about 1910, when many states rushed to block interracial couples from crossing borders to marry.
But legislators acted to repeal the law this summer only after California's Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage, raising the possibility that Massachusetts would lose lucrative same-sex weddings to the Golden State. The repeal easily cleared the House and Senate last month.
At the State House, Patrick signed the bill in a ceremony punctuated by applause from activists and legislators.
The law took effect immediately because the Legislature attached an "emergency preamble," which eliminated the customary 90-day waiting period after a bill is signed into law.
"It's a good day," he said, declaring that the repeal will "confirm a simple truth. That is, in Massachusetts, equal means equal."
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com. 