Massachusetts House passes 1913 law repeal in roll call vote

The bill to repeal the 1913 law is on its way to Governor Deval Patrick, who will sign it into law. The bill cleared a final hurdle this afternoon, when the House of Representatives passed the bill on a roll call vote after about 25 minutes of debate. The vote was 118-35, with five members not voting.

The Senate passed the repeal bill on a voice vote with no fanfare or dissent on July 15.

State Rep. Byron Rushing began debate on the repeal by giving a history of the law, and disputing statements by those who have said it does not have racist origins."Well sorry. sorry. There was a lot of concern about interracial marriage in this country in 1913," he stated, noting the controversy at the time over Jack Johnson, an African American prizefighter, marrying a white woman.

The 1913 law prohibits out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would be considered void in their home state. The origins of the bill are in question, but advocates and legal scholars have argued that it was passed in 1913 at least in part to prevent interracial couples from marrying in Massachusetts to skirt their home state's anti-miscegenation laws.

Democratic State Reps. Alice Wolf and Robert Spellane also spoke in favor of the repealing the law. Republican Mary Rogeness spoke against the repeal, stating her concern that underage couples who were not allowed to marry in their home state might come here to get married if the law is repealed.

Though passed nearly a century ago, the 1913 law had not been enforced for decades when former Gov. Mitt Romney revived it in the run-up to the beginning of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2004. He publicly warned that if same-sex couples from other states could marry in Massachusetts, the state would become "the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage."

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the 1913 law, but in 2006 the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) upheld the law. The court ruled that it only applied to states that explicitly ban recognition of same-sex marriage. Currently couples from California, Rhode Island, and New Mexico may marry in Massachusetts.

In a further show of how acceptance for marriage equality has grown within the ranks of the legislature since the 2003 Goodridge decision caused a panic on Beacon Hill and provoked heated debates, state Rep. Paul Loscocco, a Holliston Republican who was an impassioned opponent of the decision in 2004, urged his House colleagues to repeal the bill. In a July 23 e-mail to all his fellow House members, Loscocco wrote, "No legally justifiable basis exists for retaining this 1913 law, which unreasonably hinders same-sex couples seeking civil marriage from realizing equality under the law."

Last year, Loscocco surprised marriage equality advocates - and outraged many of his supporters and constituents - when he changed his vote from supporting a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality in January to opposing it in June, thus helping to defeat the amendment.

Last week, he suggested that repealing the 1913 law prevented same-sex couples from full equality under the law.

"By not repealing the 1913 law, the Legislature is effectively saying to one limited group of couples legally entitled to be married in Massachusetts (same-sex couples) that civil marriages of this 'type' only, which theoretically equal under the law to all others, are merely being 'tolerated' for those residing in Massachusetts and should otherwise be limited under Massachusetts law to 'protect' the sensibilities of those in other states," he wrote in the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by Bay Windows.

"Although the 1913 law only applies to out-of-state couples seeking to marrying in Massachusetts, its continued applicability is patently offensive to Massachusetts same-sex couples, since it is their 'type' of civil marriage that is essentially being disparaged by statute solely for the purported "defense" of marriages in other states," Loscocco stated. "Equal under the law means just that: equal - and, having made the determination civil marriage applies equally to same-sex couples, the Massachusetts Legislature should properly repeal the 1913 law."