From the NTT:
ALBANY – Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.
Also video at ThinkProgress
After first recognizing SS Marriage, we have shown that the world did not end. That may have played plenty into California’s recent polling on their SC’s recent marriage decision. Now we can show that recognizing SS marriages in other states won’t end the world either. Once that track record is shown, it should further strengthen the case for other states to recognizes SS marriages themselves or of other states.
As states follow NY I wonder what the effect will be on CA and MA tourism.
I don’t think New Yorkers can marry in MA yet – only people from NM and RI can. MA has really wasted a major economic opportunity these past few years by not repealing the 1913 laws that prevent most out of staters from marrying there.
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p>And now here comes CA, where everyone is welcome to wed. The huge backlog of west coasters will flood down there (much to the chagrin of WA and OR businesses too, I’m sure). And I’ll bet that many eastern vacationers who otherwise would go to P-town or NYC or Miami will now go to San Francisco or LA and get married while there.
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p>MA, you blew it! CA knows how to throw a party!
due to Cote-Whitacre decision. glad has more here.
… move to NY do not lose their marriage rights though, right?
NY appears to be recognizing all legally-entered civil marriages now.
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p>By the way, there were some NY couples that married in MA before MA (Romney) threw up the 1913 blockade. Their marriages are legal and recognized in MA, NY or wherever equal marriage is recognized.
Patterson so far has merely asked state agencies to report to him what their dealings are with marriage are by June 30th, I think. It wouldn’t really be up to him to recognize out of state marriages. What do agencies care about marriage anyhow? Where does it come up? It seems to me it only comes up in divorce court, and courts like asserting their independence from the other branches. They could recognize a MA marriage or not recognize it, completely independent of Patterson.
I don’t think that anybody with common sense would go there. Did anybody read or hear about 103.3 FM’s disc jockey, Barry Scott getting brutally attacked down there? It was rather vicious, from what I’ve heard.
were treating gay people unfairly. but that is hardly a reason to question the common sense of people who live or visit there. can you find a town free of crime or some police misbehavior? i know of no such place.
This:
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p>is a point well taken, Laurel.
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p>However, I think that 103.3’s “Lost 45’s Website has a big article about the P-town Police attack on Barry Scott, which was rather horrific.
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p>www.lost 45s.com
Even in California.
Absolutely.
Last I heard, the only sticking point to passage of a marriage eqaulity law in NY was the senate – possibly only the senate leadership. Anyone know if there is hope for change there this november?
From what I can piece together from news reports and Wikipedia, 2008 is an election year and the GOP has just a two-seat edge coming into the election. So it’s a reasonable possibility that the Democrats could take over, in which case the ducks would be lined up.
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p> – Dan
and wins in a tie because the Lt Gov is GOP.
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p>But… of the 26 state senators first elected in NY in the year 2000 or more recently, 18 are Democrats. This hints [but doesn’t prove] that the Democrats are gaining seats in the NY senate slowly but surely. In fact, the seven NY state senators with the longest tenure are all Republicans.
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p>I expect that the NY senate will flip by the Nov 2010 election. Marriage will be one of the factors.
The GOP is getting older and having troubling recruiting younger candidates. Also, their base in the more rural upstate areas has been losing population. Half of the 32 Republican senators will be over 65 years old by this November.
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p>Now, how about MA gets rid of that anachronistic 1913 law? Think of all the money MA businesses lose out on when gay couples start flying to CA to go get married.
Has there been a study? If not, why hasn’t the tourism folks and the pro-marriage folks gotten together to come up with a number? If there has been a study, got a linkee?
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p>I hear lots of speculation about tourism dollars, but I have no idea how much it would generate in pure dollars or as a percentage of MA’s tourism industry.
… for “Marriage Tourism” would obviously not be based on historical data. As such, I’d imagine that this kind of study is therefore much more difficult to put together. Good idea nonetheless.
with any study there’d be uncertainty and error margins, but it’d be a start anyway
and there were a lot of out-of-state plates, so the loss is probably measured in the billions.
on “lots of plates” is plus or minus “a few”, so that’s a potential substantial loss of income to local business and the state via sales tax.
that every married s-s couple i know not living in mass has taken their wedding to canada or holland. there is no doubt that american wedding funds are being spent out of state & country, mine included.
if local mass businesses aren’t interested in finding out about and fighting for the financial windfall they’re missing, i don’t feel too sorry for them and i’m not going to beg them to study the potential financial power of my cohort. i’ll happily spend my money where i know i’m wanted, and the children of those merchants will benefit from my tax dollars.
so, local businesses will just have to put aside any ambivalence they have about accepting this extra business, and figure out how to handle it. As long as there are going to be wedding parties flying to the coast for no good reason, they may as well fly to Logan and spend their money here. It presumably will be closer for about half of the weddings, so it would even save jet fuel if they could fly here instead of there.
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p>Why isn’t anyone saying “call your reps, tell them to repeal 1913!!” Since when did you just let ambivalent people lead the way?
great!
asking our reps to repeal it. Yeah, I’d say I’m leading the charge. I’ll make phone calls on Monday.
Maybe the brains in the LGBT movement don’t actually want too many people challenging their state marriage laws just yet. According to this article, they are afraid of the effect of CA marriages on the national strategy: Legal groups warn: don’t rush into lawsuits
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p>Let’s see if that stay gets issued in California, that might remove this from the election year buzz. But if they reach a decision not to issue a stay, and we know that they will be going forward with SSMs on June 15(?), then there is no excuse for our legislature to keep that law on the books. As soon as we know that CA is going ahead with it, they should immediately repeal 1913 and announce to the country that same-sex couples can come to Massachusetts right now.