Yesterday, anti-gay marriage legislator in the House filed a long-shot measure seeking to remove the SJC justices who ruled in favor of gay marriage. Today, it’s the pro-gay side who has filed its own long-shot legislation, a bill to overturn the 1913 law disallowing the performance of marriages of out of state residents if those marriages are against that state’s law.
It’s a dodgy law, on the books simply to curb interracial marriage. But the more I think about it, the more it seems like a positive thing for gay marriage in this state. Why? The next year or two are crucial for permanent gay marriage prospects in MA. March’s ConCon showed that political support is slowly tipping our way but its passing of a DoMA amendment means that in the upcoming political battle public opinion will be especially important: either voters will address the DoMA referendum or lawmakers next year will need to feel like they can change sides without too much constituent flak.
To that end, a situation in which out of staters can’t get married is the best scenario for public support of gay marriage. As I’ve mentioned before, the state’s general electorate is by and large moderate - people may lean toward allowing gay marriage or against it, but they mostly don’t care passionately about it and feel trapped between two political groups (gays and progressive allies on hand, and Christian conservatives on the other). Having gay couples from out of state come in - and framing the issue as a national struggle rather than as a simple question of whether the Commonwealth is treating its citizens equally - increases that trapped feeling among voters. Already, the anti-gay forces have the justifiable appearance of being carpetbaggers, insulting in their talk of the state’s citizens’ will when they in fact are from Georgia or Virginia. We should keep that our advantage.
Furthermore, out of state marriages forbidden will be by nature marriages largely symbolic (or legal test-case); they will not be valid in their home state. I think Massachusetts has taken a quiet pride that we have not become a media circus like San Francisco or New Paltz; symbolic marriages would assault that pride head-on. For that reason, the downside to the law for the political (as opposed to symbolic) struggle for gay marriage isn’t all that great when you think about it. Sure, gay and lesbian couples wanting to get married will be turned away - but these aren’t real marriages in any legal sense of the term. We may lose some legal test cases, but I imagine Massachusetts will provide plenty of challenges to federal family, tax and benefits laws.
At this point the biggest loser will be the local tourist economy… Provincetown, Boston, the Berkshires will have fewer wedding packages booked.
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