C'mon, Get Happy! And Married!

July 30, 2008 3:32 PM

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted to repeal a ban on out of state marriages that has been on the books since 1913. The up-shot? Out of state gay and lesbian couples may soon wed in Massachusetts. The vote goes next to governor Deval Patrick, who has already indicate that he is in favor of repealing the law.

NY Times Article
Guardian UK Article

posted by grapefruitmoon (42 comments total)

Shockingly, even straight couples might benefit from being able to marry on vacation.

Does everything have to be about gays?
posted by Malor at 3:36 PM on July 30, 2008

Strike that, I misunderstood the meaning of the law; this lets people COME TO Massachusetts and get married. So yeah, it is about gays.
posted by Malor at 3:37 PM on July 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Does everything have to be about gays?

According to Orson Scott Card, Jim D. Adkisson, and other homophobes, yes.

The GOP must be loving how gay marriage has once again re-surfaced in time for an election: it was just four years ago that the same issue managed to serve as a major distraction from the issues (the economy, the war, health care) that matter.
posted by ornate insect at 3:41 PM on July 30, 2008

Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 207, Section 11 (aka the 1913 law).

"Some legal experts have argued that the original purpose of the legislation was to block interracial couples from states that banned interracial marriages from going to Massachusetts to get married. These experts note that the law was enacted at the height of a public scandal over black heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson's interracial marriages and suggest that the law was partially a reaction to the Jack Johnson affair.

The Massachusetts law of 1913 was enacted after the proposed introduction in the United States House of Representatives in 1912 of an Anti-Miscegenation Amendment to the Constitution. This proposed nation-wide ban on interracial marriage sparked a movement among state legislatures to ban interracial marriage. By 1913, half of the 18 states that had lacked anti-miscegenation laws in 1910 introduced legislation banning interracial marriage in their state. However, Wyoming was the only state without such a ban that actually enacted an anti-miscegenation law during that time period. Massachusetts had legalized interracial marriage in 1843."

History suggests race was the basis.
posted by ericb at 3:51 PM on July 30, 2008

(Note that I am not saying gay marriage does not matter; rather that it's a wedge-issue that manages to distract certain socially conservative swing or disgruntled GOP voters who might actually vote Democrat this year)
posted by ornate insect at 3:51 PM on July 30, 2008

Deval Patrick

I knew the deval was involved!
posted by telstar at 4:10 PM on July 30, 2008

something something MITT ROMNEY something MCCAIN
posted by DU at 4:23 PM on July 30, 2008

Not a chance that this doesn't get signed by the governor, and that's fantastic news. This was a law which was (likely) born of racial intolerance, and trotted out by Mitt Romney to try to cut losses after the Goodrich decision.
posted by rollbiz at 4:42 PM on July 30, 2008

Why do gays get all these special privileges?
posted by SeizeTheDay at 4:44 PM on July 30, 2008

Old news. Conservatives have been working to push the issue for the last year in multiple states including Florida, Indiana, and Arizona, while the Republican presidential campaigns have been rumbling about holding back the queers since before Iowa. It was going to be an election-year issue even if we wore the gags and sat on our hands.

If you really want to do something about it, donate to the Arizona campaign, donate to the Florida campaign, and donate to the California campaign.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:46 PM on July 30, 2008

Who need Massachusetts when you have California?
posted by smackfu at 4:47 PM on July 30, 2008

If Trailways or Greyhound is smart, they'll start offering 'couples rates' on trips to Boston.

*contemplates buying bus himself and making a fortune*
posted by jonmc at 4:49 PM on July 30, 2008

Well, Springfield (MA) Is For Gay Lovers Of Marriage

sure to be a top tourist destination soon.
posted by inthe80s at 5:03 PM on July 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

in multiple states including Florida, Indiana, and Arizona

In other words, in swing states.
posted by ornate insect at 5:06 PM on July 30, 2008

Why do gays get all these special privileges?

It's on our membership card. You should join. Wednesdays are Member Appreciation Days, where we get 10% fewer bashings. Just show the card to the man with the baseball bat.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:06 PM on July 30, 2008 [3 favorites]

Wow. I just figured you slipped a twenty to the maitre'd.
posted by jonmc at 5:08 PM on July 30, 2008

Deval Patrick

Regarding the governor of our Commonwealth ...

With Love and Pride, Governor Deval Patrick’s Daughter Comes Out Publicly (June 12, 2008).

Deval Patrick's Daughter Comes Out in Time for Pride Parade

"Bay Windows has the exclusive scoop on the sexual orientation of Deval Patrick's daughter, Katherine. She's come out as a lesbian just in time for this weekend's Pride Parade and related Pride Week festivities. Deval and his wife are being appropriately supportive, for which we commend them.

In the interview, Katherine reveals that watching her father cheer the defeat of same-sex marriage ban in June 2007 was a moment of pride for her, especially as Deval didn't know of her sexual orientation at the time. Katherine came out her parents in July of last year. It was a 'nonevent' in her parents' eyes: they felt it was a given that they'd be supportive of their daughter no matter what.

...With regard to the whole situation, Deval poses the interesting question, 'Would we give an interview to announce one of our kids was straight?' It will truly be a great day for civil rights when no announcement of anyone's sexual orientation is needed. The Patricks didn't even want to give an interview, but felt it necessary to go public before any publications latched onto the story and tried to inject a sense of scandal into the news."

posted by ericb at 5:11 PM on July 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

Blazecock Pile-on. I should have known!
posted by DU at 6:05 PM on July 30, 2008

smackfu: hey! we had it first! and we would've gotten away with it for tourists, too, if it wasn't for those meddling racists and the mitteny fuckwits who dig up the old laws.

GAY MARRIAGE TOURIST DOLLARS! COME TO ME! COME TO MY STATE!
posted by rmd1023 at 7:13 PM on July 30, 2008

The ban only applies if your home state prohibits that marriage. An Indiana couple couldn't get married in MA; a RI couple could (RI has no law against gay marriage, though they don't explicitly recognize it either).
posted by jock@law at 7:19 PM on July 30, 2008

It's on our membership card. You should join.

You got a membership card when you joined? All I got was a used Cher album and a coupon for a free pair of boxer-briefs.
posted by HotPatatta at 7:24 PM on July 30, 2008

What do bisexuals get? a copie of Bowie's Greatest Hits?
posted by jonmc at 8:11 PM on July 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

In other words, in swing states.

Well, Indiana is probably not going to be a swing-state, and the constitutional amendment was killed in committee. I had not heard that Arizona was a potential swing state, and Florida may not be either.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:53 PM on July 30, 2008

In other words, in swing states.

Arizona's a swing state? Do they not like McCain there?
posted by lullaby at 9:10 PM on July 30, 2008

Arizona's a swing state? Do they not like McCain there?

"[A] variety of factors have made Mr. McCain’s chances in Arizona less assured than they ordinarily would seem, which his campaign has acknowledged."
posted by Knappster at 9:18 PM on July 30, 2008

Deval Patrick is my president.
posted by allen.spaulding at 9:37 PM on July 30, 2008

What do bisexuals get? a copie of Bowie's Greatest Hits?

That, and a copy of The Ethical Slut. I traded mine in for a nice fruit basket.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:45 PM on July 30, 2008

You got Bowie? Damn it, all I got was a volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

::ripoff::
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:24 PM on July 30, 2008

What do bisexuals get?

Aren't their hands already full?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:06 AM on July 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

What do bisexuals get?

THIS! *rips off stripper clothes to a Window ta-da noise*

*poses "enticingly," with 100% sexyface (tongue-out leer)*

*the audience screams*

*not in delight*
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:00 AM on July 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

2008 Arizona Presidential General Election: McCain vs Obama.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:29 AM on July 31, 2008

*rips off stripper clothes to a Window ta-da noise*

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!
posted by kirkaracha at 7:30 AM on July 31, 2008

Heh. I have a gay pal in Michigan whose mother keeps after him to move to a state where he can get married and come up with some grandchildren (either adopted or surrogate or whatever). He's already put her off about Canada, saying that the ceremony won't count, but if Mass. gets their act together, he's gonna have a whole ton of parental pressure on him again. It was one of those reasons he gave half-hearted support to the ban on gay marriage in Michigan.

I can't wait to be like, "Haha, homo, now you have to put up with same shit from your mom as I do from mine."

Seriously, equality is great.
posted by klangklangston at 10:11 AM on July 31, 2008 [2 favorites]

...which reminds me of the only credible objection to gay marriage that I've ever heard, from Jon Stewart: "No one should have two Jewish mothers."
posted by digaman at 10:19 AM on July 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

Effective immediately, same-sex couples can marry in Massachusetts!

Deval Patrick has signed the bill repealing the 1913 law.

Due to a technical change made by the House, same-sex couples from out-of-state will not have to wait the standard 90 days before the repeal of the law takes effect. They will be able to be married immediately.
posted by ericb at 10:19 AM on July 31, 2008

I made an oblique reference to this above, but isn't gay marriage legal in California AND don't they allow out-of-state couples to marriage? If someone was willing to travel, wouldn't they have gone to California?
posted by smackfu at 10:59 AM on July 31, 2008

David Bowie is my president.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:28 AM on July 31, 2008 [1 favorite]

If someone was willing to travel, wouldn't they have gone to California?

Some would: "But, he predicted 'a lot of Jet Blue cancellations from LaGuardia to Laguna and some Amtrak purchases from New York to Boston,' adding, 'Tanglewood, the Red Lion Inn, how do you say no?'"
posted by Partial Law at 11:35 AM on July 31, 2008

smackfu: Who need Massachusetts when you have California?

Well, California is still an electoral battleground on this issue, albeit one that is still very winable. MA is still important because:
1: the end goal is marriage equality in all 50 states.

2: since Goodridge v. Department of Public Health the issue has been in the hands of the State Legislature, which has blocked the amendment process. MA defies the conservative talking point that same-sex marriage is only supported by the actions of "activist judges."

(Goodridge was decided in November 2003, demonstrating that there is no "good" season for legislative activism on this issue.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:23 PM on July 31, 2008

...which reminds me of the only credible objection to gay marriage that I've ever heard, from Jon Stewart: "No one should have two Jewish mothers."

or *shudder* soccer moms.
posted by jonmc at 4:33 PM on July 31, 2008

...which reminds me of the only credible objection to gay marriage that I've ever heard, from Jon Stewart: "No one should have two Jewish mothers."

or *shudder* soccer moms.
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As a gay man, I'm offended! The nerve!

My children will have two STAGE MOMS, not soccer moms!



haha.
posted by Alex930 at 5:25 PM on July 31, 2008

As the aforementioned pal says, "I got into being gay to have sex with men, not to marry them."
posted by klangklangston at 10:16 PM on July 31, 2008 [1 favorite]