Is it only homosexuals who can’t get married in Massachusetts if they are from out of state or it everybody? If it is just homosexuals, how is that legal?
It is illegal for out-of-state couples to get married in Massachusetts if the married would be illegal in their home state.
The applicable section of the law is Chapter 207, Section 11:
As an example of how else that law might be applied. Suppose the couple are closely related (cousin-ish) and their home state doesn’t allow them to get married, but it’s okay if they were MA residents. MA would still disallow it.
Or if the other state has a waiting period after a divorce before remarrying, etc.
Then you have to consider what if just one of the couple was a resident, what if they are from a far off country, etc.?
Note that this would require every official issuing marriage licenses in MA to check if the couple are MA residents and if not, look up the laws in their home state and run thru all the possible disqualifications.
One MA official called another state’s AG recently to check on that state’s law about all this and was bluntly told that doing legal research for MA was not part of the AG’s job description.
Think how stupid this is. Consider how the marriagability status of post-op TSes vary from state to state; many times being a matter of case law rather than statute. How on earth is a clerk in MA going to find out if Tina (formerly Tim) could legally marry Jim back in their home state of Alabama?
The law dates from 1913, when it was passed as a sop to states that banned *interracial * marriage. It had been unenforced and forgotten for decades, since the federal strikedown of antimiscegenation laws, making its resurrection now a bit dubious. There are, of course, quite a few old, forgotten, ridiculous laws on the books.
The law’s effective standing is muddled at the moment - Gov. Romney ® has “asked” municipalities for lists of their recently-issued licenses, but many have declined, and AG Reilly (D) has declined to do anything with the ones Romney has sent him. Some local officials have begun asking applicants for their residency status, most have not.
The state House has already voted to repeal the anachronistic law, but the Senate refuses to take it up. Meanwhile, the equal-protection implications are obvious, and Romney’s ability to enforce it, especially without the elected AG’s help, is not.
According to this story the only places in MA known to be issuing licenses to out of state same-sex couples are Fall River (issuing to anyone who asks) and Attleboro (issuing to any couple from a state without a DOMA specifically on the books).