Boston, Mass., Jul 30, 2008 / 22:16 pm
In what marriage advocates called “part of a cynical strategy to inflict same-sex marriage on the unwilling citizens of other states,” the Massachusetts House on Tuesday voted by a margin of 119 to 36 to repeal a 1913 law that blocked marriage licenses from being granted to same-sex couples from out-of-state.
The Senate approved the repeal earlier in July, meaning the measure now requires one more procedural vote in each chamber of the legislature before it is sent to Governor Deval Patrick, who has said he will sign the measure.
Massachusetts became the first state to permit homosexual marriage in 2004, but then-Governor Mitt Romney ordered town and city clerks to follow a 1913 law that prohibits couples from marrying if the unions would be illegal in their home states.
At the time, Romney argued that repealing the law would turn the state into the “Las Vegas of gay marriage.”