December 2003: The Governor’s reaction to Goodridge
|
| Gov. Romney |
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is not happy about the Goodridge decision and tries everything he can to keep gay couples from getting married in his state.
One thing the devout Mormon is successful in doing is dusting off a state law from 1913, originally written to keep out-of-state interracial couples from going to Massachusetts to get married. The law hasn’t been enforced for decades and, in fact, the state Department Of Public Health has for some time explicitly directed counties not to enforce it. But it’s still on the books and the governor directs that it will start to be enforced again.
The law says that, if you’re an out-of-state couple, you can’t get married in Massachusetts if you couldn’t get married in your home state.
Back in the days when interracial marriages were largely illegal across the country, this served to keep them from going to
Massachusetts to marry. Now it works equally well against same-sex couples, meaning that the only ones who can legally marry
in Massachusetts are those who live there. Opposite-sex couples, of course, have no problem going to Massachusetts and getting hitched.
Timeline key: progress (green),
no progress (red),
pending court cases (purple),
events that are neutral, not directly related, or with both positive and negative effects (black)
updated 17 Aug 2008