Massachusetts Will Allow Same-Sex Marriages for Non-Residents

The 1913 law passed to prevent interracial marriages in Massachusetts, which went unenforced until invoked by Mitt Romney in 2004 as a means to prevent same-sex marriage, now has both feet in the grave. Our state Senate voted to repeal Massachusetts General Law Title III, Chapter 207, Section 11 on July 16. Today, the House did the same:

House repeals 1913 marriage law

...The Massachusetts House voted 118-35 Tuesday to repeal a 1913 law that bans couples from marrying in the state if the unions would not be legal in their own states.

The Senate also voted for the repeal earlier this month, and Gov. Deval Patrick has said he would approve it...

By the end of the week, perhaps even tomorrow, Patrick will sign the bill and a piece of bad legislation, marginalizing and bigoted from the outset, will be no more. Any two unrelated people of the age of consent will be able to get married in Massachusetts.

On July 10, the American Family Association's feckless leader said that if same-sex couples could get married in California after Election Day, the Culture War would be over and that his side would have lost. This was the reason he gave:

The vote in California, Wildmon explains, will affect the entire nation. "California is a big dam, holding back the flood -- and if you take down the dam in California, it's going to flood 49 other states," he illustrates. "It will destroy marriage as it has been known for thousands of years, and with that the cultural decline that normally would follow."

— Source

However, if — no, not if but when — the 1913 law is repealed in Massachusetts this week, will not Wildmon's dam (and probably a few blood vessels) have burst? Even if Proposition 8 were to be approved in California, as increasingly unlikely as that may be, will it matter? The couple that would have gotten married there can still get married here.

I still wish I could believe it, you know. I still don't, though. Don Wildmon will go back on his word. He makes far too good a living at spreading hate to ever capitulate to a little thing like a victory for love.

I'm proud to be a Massachusetter Massachusettian Massachusettan Masshole.

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