Rhode Island gay couple asks Massachusetts court to let them marry

Jurist (University of Pittsburgh School of Law) ^ | JUne 26, 2006 | Holly Manges Jones

[DBeers]

Rhode Island gay couple asks Massachusetts court to let them marry

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[JURIST] A same-sex couple argued in court in Boston Monday that a 1913 Massachusetts law [text] should not prevent them from marrying in the state because statutes in their home state of Rhode Island do not explicitly ban gay marriage. Mary Norton and Mary Becker [GLAD profiles], represented by an attorney with the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) [advocacy website], said the law prohibiting same-sex couples from pursuing a marriage in Massachusetts does not apply to Rhode Island residents [GLAD legal brief, PDF] because there is no "express pronouncement" against gay marriage in their home state's laws. The couple filed an "intention to marry" notice in Massachusetts shortly after the state started performing same-sex marriages [JURIST news archive] in 2004, but the 1913 law ostensibly prevented them from obtaining a license.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] in March that gay couples from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut could not marry in Massachusetts according to the law, but remanded part of the case to the Massachusetts Superior Court [official website] to decide whether the same prohibition applied to couples from Rhode Island and New York. The Massachusetts Attorney General [official website] is arguing against the couple and state lawyers said Monday that the Rhode Island laws make references to bride and groom [Attorney General legal brief, PDF], therefore indicating that marriage is only lawful between a woman and man. The superior court judge is expected to make his ruling in the case within the next six weeks. AP has more.

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[DBeers]

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[puroresu]

This nonsense is gonna keep happening until we clarify this issue with a constitutional amendment.

[rod1]

The couple should just move acorss the border if it is that important to them. They practically step in it (meaning MA) everytime they turn arond anyway.

[tflabo]

"You shall not lie with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination" Leviticus 18:22

By decree from the Upper Supreme Court's Decision.

[madprof98]

The couple should just move acorss the border if it is that important to them.

If the point were to marry, that is. But the point is not to marry; the point is to destroy marriage.

[Aquinasfan]

Even Massachusetts courts can't alter reality. It's impossible for two men or two women to marry.

[ishabibble]

If it's criminal, depraved, utterly stupid, or completely petty...it's Rhode Island.

Providence is overrun with the homosexuals now, thanks to Diva Dave and the previous mayor, current federal prisoner, Buddy Cianci. How can anyone think that this sorry schlock is newsworthy? A more worthwhile story would be the incidence of divorce among these "couples". And how many young children are affected by the breakup of these twisted unions?

[MAexile]

A same-sex couple argued in court in Boston Monday that a 1913 Massachusetts law [text] should not prevent them from marrying in the state because statutes in their home state of Rhode Island do not explicitly ban gay marriage.

If the statutes of RI don't explicitly ban gay marriage, why don't they try to get married in RI?

Could is be that they are attempting to turn MA into the Las Vegas of gay marriage?

[gidget7]

The 1913 law was already upheld in court. These activists do not take no for an answer, and will not allow anyone else to say no either. There is an upcoming vote to allow a vote on a constitutional amendment in MA, at the convention. If these activists, many of whom are in our legislature, have their way, they will not allow a vote. This is a point MA has been at several times before, and each time, they kill it.

Same sex marriage is a non existent, and illegal act. Were it not so, why is there a bill also before the legislature to make it legal? It isn't constitutional either, but that has never stopped them.

[andy58-in-nh]

I keep telling you people who think we ought to just leave it up to the states that the legal/gay alliance will surely sue their way to victory. "Marriage" needs to be defined constitutionally as between human beings of different sexes. In that way, state legislatures can have wide authority to make their own rules and regulations regarding marriage, but can't arbitrarily decide that marriage can exist between a man and a man or a donkey and a woman and a man and a goat, and then effectively force other states to recognize the same. That goes double for left-wing judges.

This is not an issue like like flag-burning or a balanced budget. Marriage is a central institution of orderly Western society and its gradual dissolution is destroying that society from within.

[Darth Republican]

[RonF]

Either you've got this photo reversed, or I don't understand why you're posting it. The way I learned the earring rule (Manlaw #259) was "Left is right, and right is wrong."

[RonF]

An idiocy like a Flag Burning Amendment is all the rage, but something as basic as this we can't get an amendment for? It's insane. We may need to pursue the alternative to Congress in Article V of the Constitution. If 2/3 of the state legislatures pass the appropriate resolution, Congress is forced to call a Constitutional Convention, which could then submit a constitutional amendment to the states that would go into effect if 3/4 of them ratified it. This bypasses Congress having to pass the amendment.

[massgopguy]

Why don't they go to Vermont if they just want to get married?

[RonF]

The Rhode Island couple should be required to prove that RI doesn't ban same-sex marriage by contracting their marriage there.

[fwdude]

A lifelong Texan, I guess I've been relatively insulated from the more egregious manifestations of the homosexual agenda and can't imagine a locality "overrun" with those who wallow in the culture. Most of Texas won't stand for it, although I've seen a hint of this mindset in Austin, the liberal capital of the state.

I'll be traveling to more "progressive" climes in the near future and hope the culture shock won't kill me.