Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics June, 2007 Extending Marriage Benefits to...

Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics

June, 2007

Extending Marriage Benefits to

Same-Sex Couples:

Massachusetts 2004-2007

The NAPHSIS/NCHS CollaborationPast Successes and Future Challenges

Salt Lake City, UT June 3rd – 7th, 2007

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) declared 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.”

The entry of judgment was delayed for 180 days. On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts city and town clerks began accepting Notices of Intention to marry from same-sex couples.

What did the Supreme Judicial Court decide in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health?



Were statutory changes made?

No. The legislature did not made any statutory changes to the marriage laws to facilitate the implementation of Goodridge.

The SJC preserved the marriage statutes, and refined the common-law definition of civil marriage to mean the voluntary union of two persons as spouses to the exclusion of all others.



Can a clerk refuse to issue a certificate of marriage to a person solely because that person intends to marry a person of the same sex?

No. The SJC declared that barring a person from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex would violate the Massachusetts Constitution.



Notice of Intention of Marriage

Changes were made to the Notice of Intention form to help clerks implement the laws of the Commonwealth, including the SJC’s Goodridge ruling.Clarifications were made to inform clerks of impediments to marriage for all marriage applicants, not just same-sex.



Items that were modified included:

Designation of applicants Where an applicant resides and intends to reside Civil unions and domestic partnerships Applicant’s sex Other items were modified to improve clarity – all impediments to marry must be equally applied and enforced, such as age, consanguinity and affinity, and laws of the state in which the parties reside.



Sample FAQs

Q: What has changed on the Notice of Intention regarding the names of the

applicants? Answer: Where the previous forms say “Bride” and “Groom”, the revised forms say “Party A” and “Party B.”

Q: Which person should be “Party A” and which person should be “Party B”?Answer: That is up to the two people involved to decide. There is no legal significance to the choice of one title or the other.



Q: What has changed on the Notice of Intention regarding where a person intends to reside?

Answer: Lines 6A & 14A now ask: “If not a Massachusetts resident, I intend to reside in: ________”

Q: Does a person have to be a resident of Massachusetts to get married there?Answer: No. There is no residency requirement

to get married in Massachusetts.



Q: If a person does not have to be a resident of Massachusetts to get married here, why would we ask for his residence and intended residence?

M.G.L. c. 207, s. 11 (section 11) states that: “No marriage shall be contracted in this commonwealth by a party residing and intending to continue to reside in another jurisdiction if such marriage would be void if contracted in such other jurisdiction, and every marriage contracted in this commonwealth in violation hereof shall be null and void.”

In other words, if a person lives and intends to continue to live in another state or jurisdiction and cannot legally get married in that state or jurisdiction, her marriage “shall be null and void.”



Q: Why enforce Section 11?Providing marriage to a couple when their marriage is “null and void” may have significant legal consequences:• The rights of children may be seriously affected;• The rights of spouses may be different than expected;• These issues may not be raised for years, such as in a wrongful death action, divorce, child support action, or estate challenge.



Q: Why hasn’t anyone focused on section 11 before?All applicants have previously had to swear under the pains and penalties of perjury that there were no legal impediments to marriage. Until now, Massachusetts has not had significantly broader marriage laws than other states. As a result, there was little reason to think that people were coming to Massachusetts to avoid their resident state’s marriage laws.

At the present time, Massachusetts is the only state in the United States where people of the same sex may marry.



Determining impediments

“Before issuing a license to marry a person who resides and intends to continue to reside in another state, the officer having authority to issue the license shall satisfy himself, by requiring affidavits or otherwise, that such person is not prohibited from intermarrying by the laws of the jurisdiction where he or she resides.” (G.L. c. 207, s. 12) (“section 12”)-A state-by-state list of all impediments was published for city and town clerks.



Q: What has changed on the Notice of Intention with regard to a person’s sex?

Answer: Lines 22 & 23 ask a person to indicate: “Sex: Male Female”



Certificate of Marriage

New fields: Sex of Party A Sex of Party B

Very minor modifications to rapidly implement change. The form is aligned exactly as the previous version, allowing city and town clerks to use existing procedures for completion and filing.



Supplement to Notice of Intention of Marriage

Unchanged, except for labels “Party A” and “Party B”



Affidavit & Correction

No additional changes --Marriage Records are “Point in Time” documents

Only provide data for those items collected in Massachusetts at the time the marriage occurred.

For example:•If correcting a record from 1916 do not include information on occupation or sex of party.



Administration No segregation of

volumes by same-sex/opposite-sex

Continued to number & report all records in sequence

Access to all marriage records follow the same rules as always



The State Registry and city/town clerks will honor a judicial order from a court

The State Registrar may refer novel legal questions to the Attorney General or may seek judicial clarification

Issues of ValidityThe State Registrar and clerks will not rule on the validity of a marriage.



Later developments The Massachusetts Superior Court issued

a declaratory judgment in the Cote-Whitacre case that same-sex marriage is prohibited in New York and not prohibited in Rhode Island.

As of October 2, 2006, same-sex couples who reside in Rhode Island are permitted to marry in MA.

A proposed Constitutional Amendment is still on the table.



Number of Massachusetts marriage records received and recorded from May 17, 2004 through April, 26, 2007

Year Male/Female

Male/Male

Female/Female

Total

2004 (5/17-12/31) 27,196 2,176 3,945 33,317

2005 37,447 736 1,324 39,507

2006 36,148 537 890 37,575

2007 3,873 37 50 3,960

Total Same-sex marriages to date: 9,695



Percent of Massachusetts marriage records received and recorded from May 17, 2004 through April, 26, 2007 by Sex of Parties

Year Male/Female

Male/Male

Female/Female

2004 (5/17-12/31) 82% 18%

2005 95% 5%

2006 96% 4%

2007 98% 2%

Percents are rounded.

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