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UNITED STATESLegal gay marriages begin City clerks in Cambridge began handing out marriage-license applications to gay couples May 17, making Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex unions and the United States just one of four countries in the world where homosexuals can legally wed. Massachusetts was thrust into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage when the state's Supreme Judicial Court issued a narrow 4-3 ruling in November that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed, and that such marriages could begin May 17. The court ruling touched off a frenzy of gay-marriages across the United States earlier this year. On May 14, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block Massachusetts from allowing gay marriages, thus removing the last legal impediment to the nation's first state-sanctioned same-sex weddings.
The Japan Times Weekly: May 22, 2004 |
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