With son Cooper serving as ring-bearer, Atlantans Michael Prudent and Craig Pigg were legally married Aug. 3, 2004, in Provincetown, Mass. The ceremony is a moment Prudent has referred to as "one of the highlights of my life."
"We felt it was important to exercise the right granted to same-gender couples in Massachusetts and we wanted to share in that right and have it legally sanctioned in front of our son," Prudent said.
But a ruling last week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the same court that in 2003 required the state to begin marrying gay couples, prohibited most marriages by out-of-state gay couples like Prudent and Pigg.
By a 6-1 vote, the court ruled March 30 that an obscure 1913 law that prohibits nonresidents from marrying if their marriage is banned in their home state applies to gay couples. Georgia voters approved a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2004, and a similar law has been on the books here since 1996.
Prudent said this week he is disappointed by the court’s decision, but it doesn’t devalue his union with Pigg, which was never legally recognized in Georgia.
"The recent ruling can’t take that away — our commitment to each other can’t be changed," he said.
Rob and Clay Calhoun of Decatur were legally married in Provincetown, Mass., on Aug. 5, 2004, taking turns holding their toddler daughter, Rainey, during the ceremony.
This week, the couple, now also dads to infant son Jimmy, said they were "pretty devastated about the Massachusetts decision regarding out-of-state couples in how it relates to the marriage equality movement for our community as a whole."
"But it does not change how we feel about our own wedding and marriage from that state whatsoever," they said.
In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gay couples are entitled to equal marriage rights in Massachusetts.
But out-of-state gay couples seeking to marry in Massachusetts were technically blocked by the 1913 law, which had not been used for decades, according to the gay rights group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.
GLAD filed a lawsuit on behalf of eight gay couples from New England and New York who sought to marry in Massachusetts.
Last week’s ruling blocked the marriages of gay couples who live in states that prohibit same-sex marriage.
"As to the New York and Rhode Island plaintiffs, their cases shall proceed in the Superior Court, on an expedited basis, for a determination whether same-sex marriage is prohibited in those States," Justice Francis X. Spina wrote for the court’s majority.
In addition to New York and Rhode Island, New Mexico, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., do not have explicit prohibitions against same-sex couples marrying, according to Carrie Evans of the Human Rights Campaign.
David Buckel, director of the Marriage Project at Lambda Legal, said "nothing has changed" for gay couples from New York and Rhode Island. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled that marriage laws in Rhode Island and New York still need to be decided by the lower courts, Buckel explained.
"The question isn’t answered with regard to New York and Rhode Island," said Buckel. "Justices did not decide as to those two states."
Lambda Legal already has filed a lawsuit in New York arguing that denying gay couples the right to marry violates the state constitution. The New York Court of Appeals will hear arguments May 31.
The 1913 law was enacted to prohibit interracial couples from marrying. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws that banned blacks and whites from marrying in 1967 in the case Loving vs. Virginia.
Gay rights groups have called for the 1913 law to be repealed but say they are focusing their efforts on defeating a proposed amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution to strip gays of marriage rights.
"The 1913 law is an artifact of an era of trying to block racial equality," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. "It’s serving its mission of discrimination."
Heterosexual couples often marry away from their home state and expect their marriage to be valid at home, Wolfson added.
"Most Americans assume they can get married anywhere they choose without discriminatory or unfair barriers. Unfortunately gay couples still do not have that basic fair treatment," he said. "This court decision refused to remove one example of the ways in which there is a gay exception to basic fairness and respect for family in America."
Erik Stanley, a staff attorney with the conservative Christian organization Liberty Counsel, said there are also restrictions on opposite-sex couples who try to marry outside their home state, like couples that are blood related.
"The principle is valid," said Stanley. "You cannot travel to marry to bypass laws in your own state."
But Michele Granda, a staff attorney with GLAD, pointed out that GLAD’s case was never about imposing Massachusetts’ law on other states — just allowing nonresident couples to marry.
When the couples returned home, their states were free to determine the legal status of their marriage, she said. Some states, like New York, do recognize marriages of same-sex couples performed in Canada.
"Nothing about this lawsuit has anything to do with laws of any other states," said Granda, adding that the lawsuit was about whether Massachusetts could discriminate against out-of-state gay couples.
"Each state has the ability to make its own decision about whether to respect a legal, valid marriage in another jurisdiction. It doesn’t require another state to do anything."
Dyana Bagby contributed and can be reached at dbagby@sovo.com.
