YES!!!

[gridlore]

Massachusetts Supreme Court rules: Ban on gay Marriage unconstitutional!

The legislature has 180 days to implement a plan to extend full civil marriage benefits to gay couples in the state. There is hostility to the measure, but unless the GOP can shove a constitutional amendment through in 180 days or less, gay marriage will be the law.

And know what that means? Under Article. IV. Section. 1. of the US Constitution:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

This has been held up in many court cases to apply explicitly to marriage. So, get married in Mass., and you are married in every state of the Union!

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Only one problem with that. At the moment, the Full Faith and Credit clause is under attack by the Federal DoMA, namely in that it allows states to ignore unions from other states that are deemed "unlawful" in the objecting state. Remember that from back when Hawaii was going towards gay marriage? Now, it's a Federal law in theoretical opposition to a clause of the Constitution; technically, it should fail when challenged in Federal court. Unfortunately, the challenge has not been made in the courts nor has the SCOTUS heard such a case yet which, naturally, would be the deciding factor. One could argue that the Faith and Credit clause has been held not to apply before in cases where a state legalized something that surrounding states did not, allowing surrounding states to for instance seize contraband which was bought legally in the state next door. (I'm thinking specifically of Prohibition-era laws just prior to the Prohibition Amendment, actually.)

[kengr]

On the gripping hand, marriages count as "contracts", for a lot of legal stuff. And that won't allow the "illegal in other states" argument to fly.

Also, the state not allowing gay marriages to be *formed* isn't the same as gay marriages being illegal.

Consider that there used to be states that didn't allow divorces. But if you went to (say) Nevada, and got a divorce there, it was still valid when you returned.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes it would still apply. A contract that involves things that are themselves illegal is automatically invalidated. That's standard contract law in every state of the Union. A contract that set up an illegal partnership would not have to be held valid in a state where that partnership itself would be illegal or invalid, even if the partnership was legal and valid in another state.

No, letting gay marriages be formed isn't quite the same, but the argument that the laws apply only to one and not the other has not been attempted and would be quibbling on a level that most judges would find contemptible even in this day and age of the limitless loopholes in tort law.

Yes, there were states that themselves did not allow divorce but still recognized a divorce from another state. That is an example of what you described in the second paragraph, changing the status of an arrangement being illegal but the arrangement itself NOT being illegal. In this case, many states have already adopted mini-DoMAs that explicitly make the male/male and female/female combinations illegal and invalid, so they would not have to recognize the arrangement from another state.