Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the information.
I'm wondering how this is administered in practice. There are various things such as insurance, loans, legal liability etc. I have no idea if or how many of these are federal or state. And if someone in the case above moves to Texas and says "married' on a particular form, is the form null and void? Does anyone check?
I can't imagine they turn in their license when they cross the state line. Maybe there's not a simple answer to this; I can imagine great complexity in administering the law...
Interesting question. The law says that the federal government does not recognize gay marriage for any purposes, so in order to say file a joint tax return you would have to be married for federal purposes. Could you get away with it illegally? Yes, but not legally. As for another state, any benefits you might acrue from the original state that would continue (insurance for example) would not be stopped as long as the original state continued the benefits. But the new state would not recognize the certificate as valid. No business in the new state would recognize it, though I assume as with non married heterosexuals, they could apply for loans or buy homes with both names on the documentation. The only real benefit, if you can call it that would be taxes.