The state joins The Netherlands, Belgium and three Canadian provinces as among the few places in the world where gays can legally marry.

09:55 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 18, 2004

BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl Jon Goode, center, and Cary Raymond, of Massachusetts, celebrate outside Provincetown Town Hall after Justice of the Peace Claire Watts, left, declares them legally married yesterday. The ceremony was the first of its kind in front of Town Hall.

History was sealed with kisses yesterday as across Massachusetts, from the Berkshires to crowded Cambridge City Hall, to the jubilant streets of Provincetown on Cape Cod, same-sex marriage arrived in America.

Six months after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state's Constitution forbids the creation of "second-class citizens," hundreds of people whom the court described as being victims of discrimination, turned out to reap what three years of court battles had sown.

In Cambridge alone, more than 250 couples, joined by thousands of revelers, waited in line early yesterday morning for the first available marriage licenses. Many capped the momentous occasion with a quick City Hall wedding amid cheering supporters

For Emily Kay and Anita Saville, of Chelmsford, Mass., partners for 21 years, the moment brought on tears: "I guess it's kind of emotional when you win your civil rights," Kay said.

Tanya McCloskey, 52, and Marcia Radish, 56, partners for 18 years, were among the first to get their license, have the customary three-day waiting period for marriage waived, and then exchange vows.

At about 9:15 a.m. Cambridge City Clerk Margaret Drury told the couple: "I now pronounce you married under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

Cheers and applause broke out.

By mid-afternoon, not a single gay couple had made an appearance in the town clerk's offices in Swansea, Somerset, Dighton or Rehoboth.

Four couples took out applications in North Attleboro. Two did so in Seekonk. In Attleboro, 15 couples showed up hoping to legalize their relationships. And in Fall River, Cindy Keene and Pamela Reinhard, who have two young adoptive daughters, were among the 13 couples seeking licenses.

"This will protect us," Keene said. "It's not just a marriage for us. It's a marriage for our family. . . And we know in our hearts we're a family." She said she also wants her adoptive daughters to know that their parents made a commitment to one another.

At the Arlington Street Church in Boston, Robert Compton and David Wilson, one of seven couples to successfully challenge the state's civil-rights laws in the landmark case of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, married under a rainbow flag connoting gay pride, with the Boston Gay Men's Chorus singing.

Compton called the fight for legal same-sex marriage "a journey that seems like a million miles with a million speed bumps."

The day's excitement spilled across the Rhode Island border, where about 75 gay-rights advocates gathered for a party last evening at the Roger Williams National Memorial in Providence,

"We're ecstatic," said Frank Ferri, a bowling alley owner who lives in Warwick with his partner of 23 years. "It's such a big day, an important day. Massachusetts has the right and we feel like we're right behind them."

Massachusetts joins The Netherlands, Belgium and three Canadian provinces as among the few places in the world where gays can legally marry.

The future for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, however, faces uncertainty.

If Massachusetts lawmakers again pass a "civil union" bill next year, residents may be asked in 2006 to reserve marriage to heterosexuals. And President Bush and other opponents of gay marriage have pledged to work for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages nationwide.

One federal law already on the books, the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1996, defines marriage for the purposes of federal law as the union between a man and a woman.

The act doesn't ban same-sex marriages but prohibits same-sex spouses from receiving federal benefits. It also says states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

On Boston's Beacon Hill yesterday, Julie and Hillary Goodridge, the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, were married by a Unitarian Universalist minister in the presence of supporters and their 8-year-old daughter, Annie, who served as ringbearer and flower girl.

"This isn't changing marriage," said Hillary Goodridge, 48. "This is just opening the door."

Only a few gay marriage opponents protested yesterday, but some of those that did expressed outrage.

"The documents being issued all across Massachusetts may say 'marriage license' at the top but they are really death certificates for the institution of marriage," said James Dobson, founder of the conservative Christian lobbying group Focus on the Family.

The decision by the Supreme Judicial Court prompted months of bitter political debate in the Massachusetts legislature.

Republican Governor Mitt Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage, announced he would enforce a 1913 law -- which once served as a hindrance to interracial marriages -- to stop out-of-state residents from coming to the Bay State to marry.

The law bans out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would be void in their home state.

Romney ordered Massachusetts town clerks to deny marriage licenses to all nonresident couples or those not planning to move to Massachusetts.

However, officials in three communities said they would defy the governor, not ask for proof of residency and issue licenses to any couples who attested they knew of no impediment to their marriage.

Connie DeCenzo and Donna DeCenzo (she legally changed her name) live in Cumberland but they decided to drive to Provincetown and pick up a marriage license anyway.

The Massachusetts marriage license application asks residents if they are Massachusetts residents or if they intend to live in that state at some point.

Connie said she asked the clerk in Provincetown if there was a time frame for moving. She was told no. So Connie checked that yes, she and Donna might be moving across the border.

She and Donna have discussed moving to Massachusetts. They have decided that if Rhode Island doesn't accept their marriage as legal, that they will move out of the state as quickly as possible.

"If Rhode Island decides to become the epitome of prejudice and ignorance, then we'll certainly put the house up for sale and move to Massachusetts," Connie said.

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch indicated yesterday that the Ocean State would recognize legally attained, same-sex marriages "unless doing so would run contrary to the strong public policy. . ."

Lynch's remarks -- that, "to date, the only marriages in Rhode Island deemed void involve bigamy, incest or mental incompetence" -- prompted Frank Ferri and his partner Tony Caparco to try to get a marriage license in Warwick.

The men said they were given the runaround -- no one knew what to do with them.

"We left frustrated," said Caparco. "But it's what we expected."

The men said they left two messages with Lynch yesterday, and are considering going to Massachusetts to get married -- though they prefer to marry in Rhode Island, where they were both raised and where they have lived in the same neighborhood for 19 years. They are confident that day is coming.

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian said last night that he knows Ferri and Caparco. He said he didn't know they were going to try to get a license but that the incident illustrates that Rhode Island's towns and cities don't know how to handle requests for same-sex marriage licenses.

The mayor said Lynch's decision needs to be expanded to the local level. "You can make a decision but unless you tell local towns you oversee, what actions you should or should not take, it kind of leaves us in the lurch."

Municipal clerks in nearby Massachusetts communities reported few same-sex couples requesting marriage licenses yesterday.

Back in Boston, Sheldon Goldstein made a prediction after obtaining a marriage license. A prediction about gay rights and marriage and all the controversy the issue has generated.

"When everybody wakes up tomorrow and sees nothing bad happened -- it's the same world it was the day before, there are only more people that are equal to them -- they're going to see there was nothing to fear."

With reports from staff writers Jennifer Levitz, Jessica Resnick-Ault, Rob Margetta and the Associated Press.