Romney eyes order on licenses: Seeks to halt marriages of gay outsiders

[Freddie Stubbs]

By Yvonne Abraham and Frank Phillips, Globe Staff | May 19, 2004

Governor Mitt Romney is planning preparing to ask a court to block city and town clerks from issuing marriage licenses to out-of-state gay couples, a senior Romney aide said yesterday.

No final decision had been made last night, but an administration aide said Romney and his lawyers were leaning toward seeking an injunction against clerks who are defying his order that cities and towns not issue licenses to out-of-state gay couples. The aide said Romney would not seek criminal penalties against the clerks -- fines of between $100 and $500 or up to a year in jail, or both.

"We're not looking to make martyrs of anyone,'' said the aide. "We're looking to resolve this with a civil case.''

Romney could seek an injunction as early as todaywed, to block clerks in Worcester, Springfield, Provincetown, and Springfield, who have been issuing licenses to out-of-state couples. Tomorrow marks the first day those couples who did not get waivers of the state's three-day-waiting period for marriages on Monday will be able to pick up their marriage licenses.

more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/05/19/romney_eyes_order_on_licenses/

[meegbear]

1. If he's really concerned about "outsiders" ...

influencing MA policies, maybe he should take the initiative and leave himself.

[sniffa]

3. bwahahaha

go back to utah!

[Kat45]

6. No shit!

[sniffa]

2. what a maggot!

it's fight time, and we're gonna win.

i appreciate the somerviLLe mayor's comments (paraphrase): "we'LL compLy with the governor's request, but we may not be abLe to get them on time"

i'm not sure if that means - if they get married before romney can vet the Licenses, then they're in the cLear.

[Bill McBlueState]

4. Mitt's just frustrated

He's obviously upset that nobody has gay-proposed to him, so he's trying to ruin it for eveyone else.

Why doesn't he go back to Utah?

[Zolok]

5. Ghod the Commonwealth has stood proud and alone

for three hundred years so yet if the Utah Homonculus doesn't start policing the town clerk's office pronto the whole shit house will go up in chunks?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Governor is a spineless wretched passive aggressive...he's using bureaucratic inertia to thwart gay marriage...a condition he'd never tolerate at the Registry of Motor Vehicles!


www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[rebellious woman]

7. Out here in Western Mass. we are trying to figure out how in hell he got

elected in the first place. Appears to us that a great
many Democrats voted for him instead of their own
candidate and God knows Boston and its suburbs are
loaded with conservatives that is why they moved
out there....like minds. AND we are below Springfield
and Worcester a bastion of very liberal left,
independent left, very "few conservatives in this
area".

[Rockholm]

8. Here is my solution to this 1913 law........

Attorney General Reilly needs so say "Fine, I will halt all marriages due to the 1913 law. However, I need to now get every single marriage license issued to an out of state couple since (insert year, 1945, 1950) and examine them to see if they were lawful."
He is my point. Say some couple got married here in Mass, but they were from Tennessee and were 1st cousins. Say this is illegal in Tennessee. However, the cleck never asked them if it was illegal for them to get married. Yippee, they are married and move home to Nashville. Imagine their suprise when 25 years later, because of this 1913 law, their marriage is now NULL AND VOID.
Is is possible to sue the state to prove that they have never issued a marriage license "illegally?" Maybe a Google search would turn up the legal imediments to marriage in every state. Cross reference that with every marriage performed to out of staters and I guarantee that there will be many cases where this scenario will work.
My two cents. Am I off the wall or on target here?