The good folk at Wikipedia inform us that it was on this day in 2004, “the first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. (were) performed in the state of Massachusetts.”
A heady time…
As the century turned it was becoming obvious that marriage equality was going to happen, if only here and there. In the United States various marriages of fleeting legality had been performed, as well as in many quarters, marriages without legal sanction. As a Unitarian Universalist minister, at the time serving the First Unitarian Society of Newton, I performed a number of those.
It was in 2001 that seven same-sex couples filed their lawsuit under the title Goodridge v Department of Public Health. The presiding judge found against them. They appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court led by Justice Margaret Marshall, and it was on the 18th of November, 2003, that the court wrote, “We declare that barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution.” They then stayed the decision for one hundred, eighty days so that the legislature could “take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion.”
This set off a firestorm. There was a constitutional convention, which banned same-sex marriage but allowed for civil unions. The legal process required that this then be passed by a second constitutional convention. However before that could occur there was an election. Every one of the fifty legislators who had supported marriage equality were re-elecred, while many of those who were opposed were swept out of office. Despite the efforts of Governor Mitt Romney, who was at the time aspiring to the presidency of the United States, and who tried to get authority to extend that stay, failed.
Then May the 17th, 2004, marriages began to be performed legally.
My first wedding for same sex couples where I was able to say “By the authority granted me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” occurred a few days later. It was a very private affair involving a colleague who wanted a larger church wedding later, but just in case that constitutional convention’s ban were to prevail, wanted something legal and now. The couple, two witnesses and I stood in the couple’s living room.
A few weeks later I officiated at a major church wedding with a local power couple, one in city government in Newton, the other in neighboring Wellesley. There were some five hundred people present including both mayors. When I got to that line about the Commonwealth people starting cheering and clapping – it took nearly ten minutes before the commotion slowed down enough for me to finish the pronouncement.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Including mine.
More weddings followed.
Of course, the constitutional convention hung over those marriages. But, when it convened in 2005, the tide had fully turned, and the ban on marriage equality was soundly rejected.
And, well, as they say, the rest is history.
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