The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled yesterday that same-sex couples who are nonresidents cannot get married in Massachusetts unless gay marriage is permitted in their home states.
Since gay marriage is not currently permitted in any other state, the ruling effectively prevents same-sex couples who are not from Massachusetts from getting married anywhere.
In making its decision, the Court referenced a 1913 statute which says that no out-of-state resident can get married in Massachusetts if the marriage would be void in their home state. The statute was originally adopted to block interracial marriage.
The ruling's opponents have expressed outrage at the Court's reliance on the racist and moribund statute, and have suggested that the ruling runs counter to the precedent set by 2003's Goodridge vs. Department of Health, which upheld marriage equity in the state.
There seems to be a confusing legal principle operating here. Laws govern lands, and they apply to the people who live, work and travel within them. Laws do not follow people around from country to country or state to state; people are expected to follow the laws of wherever they are.
Foreign travelers encounter this expectation all the time: in Singapore, it is illegal to spit on the street; in the Netherlands, it is legal to smoke marijuana. American laws end at American borders. The same holds true for individual U.S. states.
Abortion laws vary from state to state, but doctors don't deny abortions to women who cross state lines to get them - even if the timing or manner of the abortion would make it illegal in the woman's home state.
A government, state or national, is expected to enforce its own set of laws. It is not expected, or allowed, to enforce the laws of other states or countries on the people within its borders.
In the ruling, however, the Court has demanded that Massachusetts do precisely that.
In addition to enforcing its own marriage laws, Massachusetts is now expected to enforce the marriage laws of every other state in the Union - denying marriage licenses to all nonresident same-sex couples.
Certainly, a state does not have the ability to compel other states to recognize marriages. Allowing nonresident same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts would not mean that their marriages wouldn't be void in their home states.
Nonresident gay couples who would come to Massachusetts to get married would not have much to bring home with them, in a practical sense.
But getting married is, in many senses, a symbolic gesture - a chance to ritualize and celebrate a commitment. Nonresident gay couples who marry in Massachusetts wouldn't get the benefits, rights or recognition of heterosexual couples in their home states. They would get the psychological satisfaction of having gotten married. This is neither a threat to Massachusetts nor an imposition on other states.
It is unfortunate that the Court has chosen to defer to a racist, century-old statute instead of its own precedent.
In its eagerness to uphold other states' laws, Massachusetts will wind up ignoring its own. The ruling is a step backwards for same-sex couples, for Massachusetts and for equal protection under the law.
