Pictured Gay-rights advocates celebrated the first day of legalized same-sex marriages at Boston City Hall Plaza. Pictured is Paula Virtue hugging her partner Paula Kowalke, of East Boston, outside Boston City Hall after getting their marriage paperwork. Photo by Doug Meszler
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Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is continuing his jihad against gay marriage, saying he does not want to 'export' gay marriage to other states.
He is pressing for strict enforcement of a law that prohibits the issuing of marriage licenses to out-of-state couples whose home state marriage laws differ from those in the Bay State. The law was passed in 1913 to limit interracial marriage and has not been enforced for decades, if at all.
On May 19, just one day after same-sex marriage became legal in the state, Romney ordered clerks in four jurisdictions that said they would not enforce the provision—Provincetown, Somerville, Springfield, and Worcester—to send the marriage application to him. That had never been done before, but local officials complied with the order.
The following day Romney said the state would not officially record the licenses of those who did not intend to reside in the state. He also asked Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly to take steps to ensure that local officials did not continue to issue those licenses.
Reilly sent 'cease and desist' letters to clerks in the four towns on May 21. Officials in each of the jurisdictions are weighing their options.
'Massachusetts already allows heterosexual nonresidents to marry and it can't have a different rule for gay people,' said Mary Bonauto. She is the attorney with Gay & Lesbians Advocates & Defenders who won the landmark Goodridge case that struck down the ban on same-sex marriage.
'It's a 91-year-old law, and it hasn't been used in 30 years and there's a reason for that,' she told the Boston Globe. 'There are laws that have fallen into disuse because they don't make any sense.' She vowed to challenge Romney's interpretation of the law in court.
That chance may never come. On May 19 the Massachusetts Senate voted 28 to 3 to repeal the law, and attached it to the state budget. The House version of the budget does not contain that provision and it is unclear how negotiations will resolve the matter.
There was good news and bad news in Oregon. Christian Coalition attempts to defeat pro-gay candidates were a dismal failure. Two Multnomah County commissioners who supported gay marriage held on; one winning directly, another garnering 47% of the vote in a multi-candidate race. She will face an opponent who won only 31% in November.
Rives Kistler, the only openly gay member of the Oregon Supreme Court, beat down an extremist with 62% of the vote. The very gay-friendly former Portland police chief Tom Potter surprised observers by leading the multi-candidate field with 42% of the vote for mayor of that city. The run-off will be in November.
The bad news is that the Oregon Supreme Court approved a petition by the Defense of Marriage Coalition to gather signatures for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. The petition drive began on May 21 with a six-week window in which to gather 100,840 valid signatures.
Observers believe the task will be difficult but not impossible, given restrictions placed on the signature gathering process. The gay-rights group Basic Rights Oregon is among those backing a public education campaign urging voters not to sign the petition.
Even while national leaders of the religious right continue to prophesize that gay marriage will wreck havoc upon the family, the message does not seem to be resonating in the pews.
'I don't see any traction. The calls aren't coming in [on the Federal Marriage Amendment] and I'm not sure why,' Rev Lou Sheldon told The New York Times. He leads the antigay Traditional Values Coalition.
'They have staked so much on it, they have put all these eggs in one basket and now they are going to lose,' said Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union.
That is reflected in the latest Gallup poll, taken in early May and released on May 17. It showed 52% of Americans responding negatively to the statement 'marriages between homosexuals should be recognized by the law as valid.'
But support for marriage equality reached an all-time high of 42%. Only 27% responded affirmatively when Gallup first asked the question in 1996. Polls over the last year have show support bobbing around in the low to mid 30s.
Support for a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage was at 51%, within the margin of error of where the question has polled for the last year. Support for the amendment correlated with church attendance, however, almost a third of weekly church goers oppose it.
