Romney Won't Let Gay Outsiders Wed in Massachusetts

[kskiska]

BOSTON, April 24 — Same-sex couples who live outside Massachusetts will not be able to marry in Massachusetts when gay marriage becomes legal here next month, Gov. Mitt Romney said.

"Massachusetts should not become the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage," Mr. Romney said in an interview on Friday. "We do not intend to export our marriage confusion to the entire nation."

The governor's decision could mean disappointment for thousands of couples from all over the country who had planned to marry when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage.

Mr. Romney said he was basing his decision on a 48-word law, adopted in 1913, which says that the state cannot marry an out-of-state couple if their marriage would be "void" in their home state. He says he plans to enforce his interpretation of the law by rewriting the application forms necessary for a marriage license, requiring evidence, for example, of where a couple lives or plans to live.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/04/25/national/25MASS.html?hp

[Submariner]

1. Boston was great when I grew up there

Now some out of town carpet-bagging jesus freak sweeps into town just to get himself noticed for election as POTUS in 2008 so he can lead the planet's population into the Rapture.

I leave town for a couple of years and you vote this total ahole as Governor!

[cdeca]

2. Trying to risk not getting banished....

as a former mormon..... I must say they do not believe in "rapture". The Mormons however, do have their own skeletons in the closet. Polygamy was discontinued officially in 1890 but was really practiced well into the 1920's. Official doctrine continues to claim that a mortal man can become a GOD just like God the Father with multiple wives. Which really means they have denounced polygamy in this life but not the next. Ask your Mormon friends and watch them hem and haw around the issue. Can you say "alternative lifestyle"?

[Wabbajack]

3. How did this prick

get elected in a heavily Democratic state? :wtf:

[Lexingtonian]

4. standard Romney bluster

Democratic House rep Ed Spillane filed a bill in the Mass. legislature yesterday or the the day before to repeal this particular law. I say it will join the package of alterations that the Legislature will have to pass (to comply with the Goodridge verdict court order) early next month or get struck down ex cathedra

The context is that the town clerk of Provincetown and the city clerk of Worcester have already said publicly within the last week that they wouldn't do anything to enforce that law. ('You say you're from Hawai'i? That must be someplace in the Berkshires I never heard of- hey, make my life easy and just write in whatever works for you.')

I'm not even sure that there's any kind of guideline about what punishment is appropriate for violating such a law- I think you could only get an average Mass. jury to convict on it if the penalty is purely symbolic. $5 fine per count of performing the horror of permitting two consenting adults who joyfully wanted to marry to do so or something like that.... (Oooh, please convict me of that 'crime' again....)

Of course, this being Massachusetts, defendants would probably ask to be convicted. And then appeal the verdict to the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court on a Constitutional violation, where the law stands about a 99.999% chance of getting struck down.

Mitt Romney is going to be seeing all of his happy times as Governor and Presidential hopeful terminated by Margaret Marshall (the Chief Justice).