Massachusetts Law Denying Some Gay Weddings Originally Stopped Interracial Marriage

Continuing the Republican crusade to make gay and lesbian people second-class citizens, the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has successfully invoked a 1913 state statute preventing out-of-state couples to wed in Massachusetts.  Romney hates homosexuals so much that he acted even though such marriages would be only symbolic, given that no other state recognizes same-sex marriage.

I think there's a strong connection between the mindset which opposes same-sex marriage now and that which opposed interracial marriage in the 20th century.  In the Massachusetts case, that connection is starkly clear:

Legal experts have said the [1913] law was passed to prevent interracial couples from getting married.

Racists and homophobes suffer from the same kinds of fears, offer virtually identical justifications - don't call them arguments - and in this case, use the same tools.  I hope work to repeal this statute is already underway in the Massachusetts legislature.

Comments

[the Navigator]

Well, I'm not sure you're being totally fair here. You're placing all the blame on Romney - but it's the SJC, the same court that issued Goodridge in the first place, that rendered this decision upholding the 1913 law as applied to out-of-state couples. I'm all for gay marriage, and I'm not even sure this decision was right, but it wasn't just Romney's doing.

And are you sure it's beyond doubt that the marriages would be merely symbolic? They'd be valid within Massachusetts, for whatever that might matter, and my sense, without researching it, is that the "state policy" exception to the Full Faith and Credit clause hasn't really been conclusively adjudicated yet. It's probable that, given other states' enactment of state DOMAs, the federal courts would find a valid exception to FF&C and find that other states didn't have to recognize SSMs licensed in Mass., but I don't think you can say it's settled law - and besides, several states don't have DOMAs. In California, I doubt they could claim a public policy exception at all. Which, again, is good - I'm just trying to think through the legal angles.