Court Date Set In Mass. Out-Of-State Weddings Case

(Boston, Massachusetts) Thirteen Massachusetts town clerks will square off against Attorney General Thomas Reilly in a Boston courtroom next Tuesday in a battle to allow out-of-state same-sex couples wed.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts this spring (detailed coverage) but only residents of the state, and those gay couples who swear they intend to move here are eligible for marriage license applications.

The clerks say barring out-of-state same-sex couples is discriminatory and a violation of the commonwealth's Constitution.

At issue in the case is a directive from Reilly that the clerks must obey a 1913 law that says marriage licenses cannot be issued to couples from other states if those marriages would be "void" in the states where the couples reside.

The law had been created when Massachusetts legalized interracial marriage and faced an outcry from other states which still banned the unions. Even then, the law was seldom enforced.  After the US Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that preventing interracial marriage was illegal and struck down bans in those states which still prevented them the Massachusetts law collected dust.

Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a foe of same-sex marriage, dusted off the old statute and declared it was still valid and would apply to gay and lesbian couples from outside the state seeking to wed in the Commonwealth. (story) Romney pressured Reilly to lean on clerks across the state after four communities, Provincetown, Somerville, Springfield, and Worcester, refused to obey the law and began issuing licenses to gay couples from outside Massachusetts.  When the four were served with cease and desist orders out-of-state same-sex marriages ended in the state.

Tuesday, July 13, at the preliminary hearing in the clerks' suit, a judge will be asked to enjoin the state from initiating any prosecutions or from taking any enforcement action against the clerks.