With relatively little fanfare (though a story in today’s NYT), Massachusetts is quickly moving to repeal its 1913 anti-miscegenation defense law – a statute that made it difficult for interracial couples to visit, marry, and return to states that prohibited such bonds. The statute reads:
No marriage shall be contracted in this commonwealth by a party residing and intending to continue to reside in another jurisdiction if such marriage would be void if contracted in such other jurisdiction, and every marriage contracted in this commonwealth in violation hereof shall be null and void.
When Massachusetts began to recognize gay marriage, Governor Mitt Romney invoked the provision explaining that he didn’t want it to become the Las Vegas of same sex marriage. The state Senate has now adopted legislation repealing this law, and it is expected to pass the state House (and be signed by Gov. Patrick) shortly.
You might think that this is a morality move – both because the discrimination was unseemly, and because reliance on a law apparently designed to enforce Jim Crow racism was morally appalling – but that would of course be silly. Massachusetts has suddenly realized that times have changed enough and there is big money to be made as…the Las Vegas of Same Sex Marriage.
And in that vein, how long will it be until Las Vegas gets its own beachy casino called Provincetown? (Or maybe Steve Wynn will transform the facility shown here?) The Nevada legislature could authorize gay marriage “only in specially designated gaming facilities” and only for ” parties residing and intending to continue to reside in another jurisdiction if such marriage would be void if contracted in such other jurisdiction.” Could there be a better use for the handiwork of the anti-miscegenation movement?