MA Senate moves to redefine marriage in other states
Tuesday July 15, 2008 - 03:40 AM
With its vote today to dismantle a 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state couples from marrying Massachusetts if they are ineligible for marriage in their home state, the Massachusetts Senate is inviting court challenges to the marriage laws of other states.

Massachusetts Family Institute
MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release
July 15, 2008
Contact:  Lisa Barstow (617) 480-1719 | lisa@barstowcom.com              

MA Senate moves to redefine marriage in other states

Woburn, MA – With its vote today to dismantle a 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state couples from marrying Massachusetts if they are ineligible for marriage in their home state, the Massachusetts Senate is inviting court challenges to the marriage laws of other states.

"The Massachusetts Senate has no right to infringe on the internal issues of how other states define marriage but that’s exactly what they voted today to do," said Kris Mineau, president, Massachusetts Family Institute.

Dubbed falsely by same-sex marriage activists as a law with an anti-race bias, the State Supreme Judicial Court in 2006 ruled that the law was not racially motivated.

"Legislators were pressured unscrupulously by same-sex marriage activists to dismantle this law or be branded racists," Mr. Mineau said--adding that the Human Rights Campaign hired lobbyists to work over Massachusetts legislators on this issue.

"Massachusetts legislators voted to abolish a ban on interracial marriage in 1843--a full seventy years before this law was written," said Mr. Mineau.  "The express purpose of the 1913 law was to create uniform marriage standards and respect states rights, but the state senate has now reneged on that principal."

State Supreme Judicial Court justices writing in support of the 2003 Goodridge decision stated that their ruling would not impact other states' rights to define marriage, expressly citing that the 1913 law protected states' rights.  In 2006 when same-sex marriage activists tried to strike down the 1913 law, the SJC reasserted their support of the law underscoring the law’s constitutionality and citing that it was not racially based.

MFI expects to see an explosion of costly lawsuits causing a boon for trial lawyers if out-of-state couples come here to marry and go home to sue their state for recognition.  It also puts so-called gay divorce in question as same sex couples face a legal limbo when seeking to dissolve their Massachusetts marriages in their home states which have not recognized them.

If approved by the House, the repeal of the 1913 law would substantiate the absolute necessity for a federal marriage amendment. 

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