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Massachusetts Governor Orders Officials to Record Same-Sex “Marriages” Blocked by Romney

By Peter J. Smith

BOSTON, April 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick ordered state officials Monday to record the 26 out-of-state same-sex “marriages,” which were blocked by his predecessor, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Gov. Patrick ordered the Department of Public Health to bind and index the out-of-state same-sex “marriages”, which Romney had prevented by enforcing a little-known law from 1913 that forbids out-of-state couples (except Rhode Island) from marrying in Massachusetts if they are prohibited from marrying in their native states.

"I think that the previous administration was using a gimmick to make what I feel was a discriminatory point," said Gov. Patrick, a Democrat, in announcing his decision. "It's a simple gesture to include the information on the register. Keeping it out was the gimmick."

Patrick’s order affects 26 homosexual couples who had obtained marriage licenses from four towns where clerks defied the law. Although registering same-sex “marriages” in state records will not change the legal marriage status of the couples in their home states, it does negate Romney’s effort to stymie out-of-state homosexual couples from appealing to the courts to force their states to recognize same-sex “marriages.”

"It was Governor Romney's enforcement of this law that stopped gay marriage from being visited on every other state in the country," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told The Boston Globe. "Now that Governor Romney is out of office, we are seeing an erosion of the previously strong defense of traditional marriage coming out of the executive branch."

Approximately 8,000 same-sex couples have “married” in Massachusetts since the state’s Supreme Judicial Court ordered the legislature in 2003 to allow same-sex “marriage” making it the only state in the United States to legalize same-sex “marriage.”
 
However, pro-homosexual legislators are expected to offer legislation repealing the 1913 law this session. Democrats have controlling majorities in both houses of the legislature and Senate president Therese Murray (D), House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi (D) and Gov. Deval Patrick (D) have expressed a desire for the law’s repeal.

A joint session of the legislature will meet again in May to take up the proposed amendment protecting traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Two consecutive joint sessions of the legislature must approve the amendment with a minimum of 50 votes in order to pass to a decision by the voters. There are 161 members of the House of Representatives and 39 Senators.

Last time the proposed amendment received 61 votes. If it passes again, the amendment will be put on the ballot for the 2008 election.

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