Massachusetts
governor recognizes 26 out-of-state marriages

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has issued an order to officials stating that they must record the marriages of 26 out-of-state gay and lesbian couples whose marriages were not recognized by former governor Mitt Romney. On Friday, Ben Clemens, Patrick's chief legal counsel, ordered the commissioner of the department of public health, John Auerbach, to "bind and index" the unions, reports The Boston Globe. The state supreme judicial court ruled in March 2006 that Romney could invoke a law from 1913 to deny out-of-state couples the right to marry in Massachusetts if the law in their home state specifically prohibits same-sex marriages. As reported by the Globe, same-sex couples from Rhode Island were the exception to the rule as they were the only ones allowed to marry in Massachusetts after a ruling acknowledged last September that Rhode Island law does not specifically bar same-sex couples from marrying. According to Patrick's office, two of those 26 couples whose marriages were not recorded were from Rhode Island. "It appears like the prior administration was politicizing a routine administrative function," said Kyle Sullivan, a spokesman for Patrick. "There was no legal basis for separating these certificates in the first place." However, Romney spokesman Eric Fernstrom told the Globe that the former governor was acting on legal authority when he kept the marriages from being recorded because Massachusetts law does not recognize same-sex unions of couples from out of state. Prior to Patrick's decision, the 26 couples had already obtained marriage licenses in four towns in which clerks defied Romney's orders. (The Advocate)