Judge: Rhode Island Gay Couples Can Marry In Massachusetts

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/09/092906rhode.htm

A Boston judge has ruled that a Massachusetts law forbidding out-of-state residents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be permitted in their home state does not apply to Rhode Island.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly said that Rhode Island does not specifically ban gay marriage.

The law was enacted in 1913 when most states did not recognize interracial marriage. After the US Supreme Court ruled that laws barring interracial couples from marrying was illegal the Massachusetts statute fell into disuse.

After same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) used the old law to order local clerks not to issue marriage licenses to couples from outside the state.

[xchrom]

1. uh-oh -- more hetero marriage destroying

homos getting their married groove on.

what ever will the straight couples of rhode island do?

[swimboy]

2. When the marriage licences are gone, they're gone.

There won't be any more and there won't have been enough to go around.

[xchrom]

3. oh. my. rationing marriage?!?!

ok -- some freeper heads are going to 'splode.

[gaspee]

4. Straight couples

In RI are supportive of gay marriage. RI has the highest support of gay marriage than any other state. There's a reason no one has tried to outlaw gay marriage in this state. It wouldn't pass. IMO, in the next 5 years, there will a legalization of same sex marriage in RI -- right about the time we have the first elected openly gay governor.

[and-justice-for-all]

5. They will not notice anything different...

..They will be forced to realize that..Oh, May..Gay people are people too.

Equal rights are not special rights.

[TaleWgnDg]

6. Hopefully, this Massachusetts ruling by both the SJC and the

lower court (here a superior ct) does not give extremists more bait for rightwingnut votes, both in campaigns for election and for further anti-same-sex marriage laws.