The SJC upholds the law preventing out-of-state marriages contrary to the state laws of the origin state.
MassMarrier and Under the Golden Dome are blasting the law and the SJC, so I thought it might be a good time to revive my 2004 post on why that 1913 law is good for gay marriage. Shorter version: the political downside of creating a carpetbagger dynamic outweighs the upside in granting marriages that are entirely symbolic.
In fact, one of the big arguments for gay marriage has been that there are all sorts of material benefits (and responsibilities) that inhere to the right of marriage, that it’s not merely symbolic gesture. Setting up a cottage industry for marriage-in-name-only for out-of-staters flies in the face of that.
That’s on top of any legal reasoning behind the SJC’s decision. As a commenter at Blue Mass notes, "The original ruling (November ‘03) was based on the MA constitution barring the creation of second-class citizens, and that disallowing gay marriage did just that." Non-MA citizens fall out of that scope.
UPDATE: Jason corrects me on the legal grounds for the SJC decision yesterday. MassMarrier rebuts.
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