Welcome to Massachusetts!
It’s official. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has signed a repeal of the 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state couples from marrying in the state if their home states forbid the unions.
At the same time, he signed the MassHealth Equality bill, granting equal benefits to married same-sex and opposite-sex couples through MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program. MassHealth, which receives federal funding, was prohibited from recognizing same-sex marriages by the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The new law forces the state to pay for providing the benefits to same-sex married couples. Gov. Patrick noted that this is “the first piece of legislation in the nation to reject discrimination in the federal Defense of Marriage Act.”
Welcome to the Commonwealth! New Yorkers, leave your Yankees hats at home if you want town clerks to be expeditious with your paperwork.
(I should also point out that while we’re in a celebratory mood today in the Bay State, there’s still a list of LGBT rights to work on here, including expanded rights for transgender people, LGBT youth, seniors, and victims of domestic violence, and in the area of HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.)
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