[ OUR OPINION ]
Gay marriage should
gain public acceptanceLEGAL skirmishes can be expected across the country as gay couples seek recognition of their new marriage licenses. Nearly a thousand couples applied for licenses on Monday as Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriages. About one-tenth of the licenses were sought by out-of-state couples, and some of those could become test cases in their home states. Eventually, gay marriage should gain recognition while achieving public acceptance beyond the legal battlefield.
THE ISSUE
Scores of gay couples applied for marriage licenses in Massachusetts in hopes that their unions will be recognized in other states.
Gov. Mitt Romney banned licenses from being issued to out-of-staters, invoking an archaic 1913 state law, aimed at blocking interracial marriages, which forbids Massachusetts from marrying anyone who cannot be legally wed in their home state. Several communities defied Romney's order, calling the 1913 law unconstitutional.
Romney has threatened to invalidate the out-of-state licenses once they reach the state's records registry. That may be difficult, because most out-of-staters checked -- with a wink -- a box declaring their intent to move to Massachusetts, a condition accepted by Romney.
If the out-of-state licenses survive that process, individual states will be asked to honor the marriages. The U.S. Constitution requires that states give "full faith and credit" to other states' public acts, records or judicial proceedings. That provision is likely to be put to the test in some states.
Rhode Island's attorney general issued a statement saying his state probably would honor "any marriage validly performed in another state." The attorney general of Connecticut said in a letter to Romney that same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts are not "automatically void" in Connecticut "because our state has no statute declaring same-sex marriage void." Hawaii Attorney General Mark Bennett is not likely to join them; Governor Lingle has stated her opposition to same-sex marriage.
The issue of same-sex marriage gained national attention in Hawaii in 1993, when the state Supreme Court ruled that banning such unions was discriminatory. Since then, 39 states -- including Hawaii -- have outlawed gay marriage, and Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act. Hawaii, California and New Jersey provide certain rights short of marriage to gay couples, and Vermont enacted a law five years ago recognizing civil unions, conveying many of the same legal rights as marriage.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans have come to accept the concept of same-sex marriage. When the issue was put on Hawaii's ballot in 1998, nearly 70 percent of voters favored permitting the ban. National opinion polls brought similar results; a 1996 Gallup Poll found that 68 percent opposed and 27 percent favored gay marriage. However, a Gallup Poll early this month found that opposition had fallen to 55 percent while support had risen to 42 percent.
