MASS. SENATORS SEEK TO DITCH RESIDENCY RULE: From the Boston Globe

Senate Democrats are launching an effort to repeal a 1913 law that Governor Mitt Romney is using to block out-of-state gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts, and the lawmakers hope to stage a floor debate next week, as the state prepares to legalize same-sex marriages.

Senators Jarrett T. Barrios of Cambridge and Stanley C. Rosenberg of Amherst are filing an amendment to the state budget that would effectively eliminate the residency requirement for same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses. It was unclear yesterday whether the bid would pass the Senate, but the effort would focus attention on the controversial law before same-sex couples can legally marry on May 17. "I believe that my colleagues in the Senate will agree that there is no place for race discrimination, or sexual-orientation discrimination, in our statutes, and the time has come to eliminate the 1913 discriminatory law," Barrios said.

The 1913 law, adopted in part to block interracial couples from other states marrying in Massachusetts, prohibits out-of-state couples from marrying if the marriages would be void in their home states. Romney has said that the law prohibits residents of all 49 other states from entering a same-sex marriage, since none of those states specifically allows gay marriage. His critics have said Romney's interpretation of the law is too broad, and that the law is archaic and unevenly applied.

Because the move to repeal the law is an amendment to the state budget, the proposal will almost certainly make it to the Senate floor, senators said. ...

Lees added that he did not think out-of-state couples had much to gain from the law's repeal, since they would be returning to states where their marriage "isn't recognized or sanctioned or where any benefit would come of it." ...

Gay-marriage supporters have accused Romney of dusting off an anachronistic law with a shameful past. But the administration points out that Justice John M. Greaney of the Supreme Judicial Court referred to the law in his opinion concurring with the majority's gay-marriage ruling. Greaney wrote that the existence of the law rebuts "the argument, made by some in the case, that legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts will be used by persons in other states as a tool to obtain recognition of a marriage in their state that is otherwise unlawful."

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