Towns Won't Wed Out-Of-State Gay Couples
The Associated Press

Three of the four Massachusetts communities that married same-sex couples from outside the state have stopped issuing licenses to nonresidents after receiving a warning from the state attorney general.

Worcester, Somerville and Springfield stopped issuing licenses to gay couples on Monday, one week after same-sex marriages became legal in Massachusetts. Officials of the fourth community, Provincetown, planned to meet Tuesday night to discuss whether to comply with the warning from Attorney General Thomas Reilly.

Before gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts on May 17, Gov. Mitt Romney had warned city and town clerks that a 1913 law barred them from marrying out-of-state gay couples. But clerks in Somerville, Provincetown, Worcester and Springfield defied the Republican governor by giving licenses to all comers who attested that they knew of no legal impediment to their union.




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Somerville responds to Reilly's gay marriage order
The Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) - The mayor of Somerville, whose city clerk has stopped granting marriage licenses to gays and lesbians from other states after earlier defying an order to do so, asked Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly for clarification on the issue.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, whose clerk has given out about 65 same-sex marriage licenses as of Monday, criticized Reilly in a letter for enforcing a view upheld by Gov. Mitt Romney that a 1913 law forbids out-of-state couples from marrying.

"As matter of law and policy, I believe the Somerville City Clerk has acted correctly in issuing these licenses," Curtatone wrote on Monday.
Responding to a letter sent last week by Reilly, Curtatone also asked if last week's letter constitutes "an official cease and desist order."


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Coors says he'd support proposal to ban gay marriages
By Gwen Florio, Rocky Mountain News
May 25, 2004

Pete Coors, whose brewing corporation generally wins kudos from the gay community for its equal-opportunity benefits and policies, said Monday he'd support amending the Constitution to define marriage as being solely between a man and a woman.

"It's important that we set this record straight for all judges in the future," Coors said in a radio debate with former Congressman Bob Schaffer, his opponent for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. "It's unfortunate that we have to use the Constitution in this manner."


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California Supreme Court hearing gay marriage dispute

San Francisco-AP -- California's Supreme Court hears arguments today on whether San Francisco's mayor abused his municipal powers when he issued thousands of marriage licenses to gay couples this year.

The arguments will focus on how much leeway elected officials have to interpret the law and experts predict Mayor Gavin Newsom will lose.

California law clearly defines marriage as a union between a man and woman. In 2000, voters also approved a statewide initiative requiring the state to only recognize marriage between opposite sexes.

Until a suit by gay couples denied licenses reaches the court in a couple of years, the marriages performed in San Francisco are largely symbolic.


California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and gay marriage opponents are urging the court to take the next step and invalidate them.