Source: Bay Windows, New York Times
BOSTON -- Massachusetts may have been the first state to legalize same-sex marriage for its residents, but when California last month invited out-of-state gay and lesbian couples to get married, the potential economic benefits did not go unnoticed here. Now Massachusetts wants to extend the same invitation.

On Tuesday, the State Senate voted to repeal a 1913 law that prevents Massachusetts from marrying out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states.

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

House Speaker Sal DiMasi hopes to pass a companion bill in the House before the session ends July 31, Boston's Bay Windows reports.

Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat and a supporter of same-sex marriage whose 18-year-old daughter recently disclosed publicly that she is a lesbian, has said he will sign the repeal, New York Times reports.

Passage of the bill in the House would bring Massachusetts one step closer to opening its doors to same-sex couples from across the country to get married in the state. DiMasi spokesman David Guarino said the speaker had not yet decided when to bring the bill up for a vote.

"The speaker is supportive of the repeal. He thinks the so-called 1913 law is outdated and unfair and should be repealed this session. When exactly that will come to the floor I can’t say at this point," said Guarino.

House leadership has polled members on their stance on the repeal bill, but Guarino declined to release the results of the poll or to say how much support there is in the House for repealing the 1913 law.

The repeal of the out-of-state marriage ban would come more than four years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay men and lesbians to marry, and same-sex marriage advocates said the timing was carefully calculated to catch the prevailing political -- and economic -- winds.

State officials said they expected a multimillion-dollar benefit in weddings and tourism, especially from people who live in New York, New York Times reports.

A just-released study commissioned by the State of Massachusetts concludes that in the next three years about 32,200 couples would travel here to get married, creating 330 permanent jobs and adding $111 million to the economy, not including spending by wedding guests and tourist activities the weddings might generate.

"We now have this added pressure, given what's happened in California, that we really think that it is a good thing that we be prepared to receive the economic benefit," State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, a Democrat who sponsored the repeal bill, said Tuesday after the vote.

Wilkerson added, "For me it wasn’t the most important basis of the argument, but it certainly is a perk."

The origins of the 1913 bill are in question, but advocates and legal scholars have argued that it was passed at least in part to prevent interracial couples from marrying in Massachusetts to skirt their home state’s anti-miscegenation laws.

Senators in favor of repealing the bill discussed the law's allegedly racist origins during remarks prior to the vote. They argued that its repeal would help Massachusetts close the door on the last vestiges of anti-miscegenation laws.

"In some respects this bill is the final nail in coffin of what I think were the darkest days in Massachusetts,"  Wilkerson said.

She described the national outcry over the marriage of Jack Johnson, the first black world heavyweight champion boxer, to a white woman in 1911 and argued that the historical record shows that Massachusetts passed the 1913 law and that other states passed similar laws to prevent interracial couples from evading their own state's laws.

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."

Kofi Jones, spokeswoman for Secretary Dan O'Connell of Housing and Economic Development, said: "The administration believes repealing this discriminatory and antiquated law is simply the right thing to do. The study does show, though, that this action could also bring some added economic benefits to the commonwealth, which would be welcomed."

Ted Jarrett, owner of the Old Mill on the Falls Bed and Breakfast in Hatfield, Mass., which plays host to many same-sex weddings, told the New York Times, "Obviously it would help us from a business standpoint. I kind of feel like there will be people coming in."

Politically, the California decision and a decision by Gov. David A. Paterson of New York to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, gave supporters of same-sex marriage here the fuel they needed to press for repeal without fear that it would become a lightning rod in the presidential election, advocates said.

Wilkerson told reporters after the vote that the repeal bill was a relatively easy sell to lawmakers, particularly after the much more controversial vote in June 2007 to vote down an amendment to the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. She said lawmakers’ comfort with the vote was evident by the absence of any objections during the voice vote.

"As you heard, the minority leader [Sen. Richard Tisei] supported it, and that was pretty much the message we got from members today. We don't need to do it, let's get to the real tough stuff," said Wilkerson.

Arline Isaacson, co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, said that many lawmakers felt the California ruling made support for lifting the ban far less controversial, and that the economic argument did not hurt.

"Like other states, it's tough fiscal times," Isaacson said, "and everyone recognizes that this will be an economic boon for Massachusetts because every gay person who comes here to marry, most won't come alone."

She continued, "They will bring their families and their friends and all those people will stay at the hotels, eat at the restaurants, shop at the stores and hire caterers and florists and musicians."

The study predicts that most of the couples -- about 21,000 -- will come from New York, nearly half of the 48,761 same-sex couples in that state.

Openly gay state Rep. Liz Malia (D-Jamaica Plain) emphasized the need for the House to finish off the job of wiping the 1913 law off the books.

"We have a lot of really crucial issues to look at and I think a lot of people have looked at all the different aspects of this and said, first of all the 1913 amendment is absurd, it’s obscene, and we need to fix it," said Malia in an interview with Bay Windows after the Senate vote.

"There’s also a history of a whole lot of antiquated law still in the books, but this one definitely should be addressed; we know enough about it now to deal with it. And I think an awful lot of people are ready to move forward in a positive way," she added.

Full article:  Senate easily passes 1913 law repeal bill on voice vote; DiMasi wants House vote soon | Bay Windows
A 1913 Law Dies to Better Serve Gay Marriages | New York Times