E-Mail This Article to a Friend State of matrimony Romney and Reilly have sealed the borders against out-of-state same-sex couples who want to marry with a 91-year-old statute that’s sure to have its day in court BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

BARBARA MARGOLIS and Colleen Gregory knew they were racing against the clock. The long-time Rhode Island couple set out to obtain a Massachusetts marriage license on June 1, exactly two weeks after same-sex marriage became legal in this state. Margolis, a 48-year-old attorney, and Gregory, a 50-year-old psychologist, hadn’t expected to get hitched in the Bay State. But then they heard about all the gay Rhode Islanders traveling across the border to marry despite Governor Mitt Romney’s edict that nonresident same-sex couples cannot wed here. Rhode Island attorney general Patrick Lynch also announced, in a May 17 statement, that his review of local statutes "suggests that Rhode Island would recognize any [gay] marriages validly performed in any other state." So the two whipped into action.

"We thought, ‘Jeepers! We could do this,’" recalls Margolis, who lives in South Kingston with her partner of 12 years.

So on the morning of June 1, Margolis and Gregory headed to Fall River, one of six Massachusetts communities that defied Romney and issued marriage licenses to nonresident gay couples. Fall River’s city clerk, Carol Valcourt, helped the couple fill out paperwork. She advised them to seek a waiver of the three-day waiting period for a marriage license because, in Margolis’s words, "We could be stopped at any minute." The two trekked the four blocks from City Hall to the probate court, where they paid $65 to petition for a waiver. But before a judge could hear their request, Valcourt informed the court that Attorney General Tom Reilly had just warned her not to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples who don’t live in Massachusetts.

Evidently, the clock had run out on the couple. Says Margolis, with a sigh, "The train was coming and we were trying to race across the tracks...."

Margolis and Gregory are not the first same-sex couple to see their marital hopes dashed by Governor Romney — who, with help from the Attorney General’s Office, has zealously pursued out-of-state gay couples getting married here. Since May 17, the first day gay civil marriage became legal, the governor has made good on his promise to enforce a controversial 1913 state statute prohibiting nonresident couples from marrying in the Bay State if "such marriage[s] would be void" in their home states. Romney has interpreted this language broadly to mean any state not permitting same-sex marriages — or the 49 remaining states in the nation. When four municipalities — Provincetown, Somerville, Springfield, and Worcester — began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples who had no intention of moving to Massachusetts, Romney demanded that local officials hand over the couples’ marriage-license applications. He did the same thing a month later after discovering that Fall River and Attleboro had been quietly giving licenses to gay out-of-staters as well.

Romney forwarded the applications to Attorney General Reilly, who, in turn, sent five-page letters to the offending municipalities urging them to comply with the 1913 statute. Though not a classic "cease and desist" order, Reilly’s letter warns each community to "advise your clerk’s office to cease and desist from such actions" to avoid criminal penalties of up to $500 and a year in jail.

To date, all six municipalities have heeded the warning. No municipality, as far as state officials know, is currently providing marriage licenses to nonresident same-sex couples.

Romney justifies his aggressive attack on out-of-state gay couples as though he were doing a favor for the rest of country. The existence of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, the argument goes, could open the floodgates to lawsuits over their legal recognition in other states. Social conservatives call this the domino effect: same-sex couples will get married in Massachusetts, then return home and demand marital benefits or challenge state laws barring same-sex civil marriages. Mary Bonauto, the lead attorney at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and in the Goodridge case that legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, sarcastically describes it as the "litigation Armageddon theory."

On May 20, the governor told reporters at a State House press conference that he was intercepting the marriage-license applications of out-of-state same-sex couples to avoid exporting gay marriage nationwide. Asked to elaborate last week, Romney spokesperson Shawn Feddeman offered this explanation: "The governor is a firm believer that the people should have a voice in an issue as important as the definition of marriage. He believes the people of other states or their elected representatives should decide" whether or not to allow gay men and lesbians to wed."

Reilly’s motives, by contrast, are less easily understood. Initially, the attorney general said the 1913 statute applies only to gay couples from the 38 states that have laws specifically banning same-sex marriage. But Reilly has since flip-flopped, declaring, on May 21, that he shares Romney’s extreme view that same-sex couples from any of the other 49 states cannot wed legally in Massachusetts. (The Attorney General’s Office did not return a phone call from the Phoenix seeking comment.)

Whatever their motivations, Romney and Reilly have done just what the governor promised — made it more difficult to transport gay marriage to the rest of the country. Last year, when the state Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) heard the Goodridge case, three attorneys general from Utah, Nebraska, and South Dakota invoked the domino-effect argument in an amicus curiae brief opposing civil-marriage rights for same-sex couples. SJC justice John Greaney addressed it in a footnote in his concurring opinion, in which he noted the 1913 statute would preclude "the argument ... 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."

Although Bonauto chalks up opponents’ deployment of the domino theory to "scare tactics," she acknowledges that the governor and attorney general have blocked a valid legal avenue for gay out-of-staters. "Frankly," she adds, "opponents cannot believe the luck that they’re having with this [1913] law on the books. They’re beside themselves with joy."

The antics of Romney and Reilly have indeed foiled the plans of couples like Margolis and Gregory. The pair are married in the spiritual sense of the word; they had a wedding in Provincetown six years ago. Still, they figured they would cross the border to get legally hitched and, some day, file a lawsuit in Rhode Island to claim the benefits associated with marriage. Margolis puts their quest this way: "Those of us in long-term relationships want to see the benefits of marriage. Why shouldn’t we have those rights?"