A Milestone for Gays, A Boon for Massachusetts

For the town, that boomlet means an influx of cash at a time when the state is suffering from high unemployment and the effects of a sluggish national economy. "There's got to be some residual economic benefit," Johnstone said, considering the meals, the hotel rooms for family members and friends, and the rings -- a bonanza for local jewelry companies.

Massachusetts requires a three-day waiting period for couples getting a marriage license, and when they are coming from out of state, that translates into three extra days to eat, shop and otherwise spend money.

A report prepared for the Massachusetts economic development office estimated that 32,000 same-sex couples are likely to come to the state to marry over the next three years, pumping about $111 million into the economy. The report said the state stands to gain about $5 million of that from sales taxes and the cost of marriage licenses.

The report also predicted that about 44 percent of New York's estimated 48,761 gay couples will come to Massachusetts to wed and that more than 7,000 will come from other nearby states, including New Jersey, New Hampshire and Vermont -- even though those states have not explicitly said they will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

"We definitely think this is an economic opportunity for Massachusetts. There's a lot of enthusiasm for this market," said Betsy Wall, director of the state's tourism office. "I think it's good for tourism across the board to be known as a state that's open and welcoming to everybody."

On the beach at Provincetown's Sandcastle Resort, Maria Servedio, dressed in a black tuxedo and hat, married her partner of a dozen years, Elisa Catalioto, who wore a white wedding dress and took Maria's last name. They came from Upstate New York.

"More gay people need to stand up for their rights, because we're human beings," Maria Servedio said. "We've lived together for years. Why shouldn't we have the same rights as everybody else?"

The 1913 law was put in place as a segregationist measure, to prevent blacks and whites from states with Jim Crow laws from coming to Massachusetts to marry. It was enacted in response to heavyweight champion Jack Johnson's marriage to a white woman, then it lay dormant for decades until then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) -- an opponent of same-sex marriage -- invoked it as a way to prevent out-of-state gay couples from coming here to wed.

The repeal effort was led by state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson (D), who came to Massachusetts from Arkansas as a child with her parents, fleeing the Ku Klux Klan. For Wilkerson, the repeal was about not economics but justice. "I could not do to other people what was done to my family," she said in an interview in her office at the State House in Boston.

Arminio and Angotti, and Oswald and Schlicker, married at sundown at Long Point, with a lighthouse and Cape Cod Bay as the backdrop. They stood in a circle of clamshells interspersed with blue and green, blueberry- and pear-scented candles.

"I just wanted to do it -- do it the right way," Arminio said just before the service.

There was an exchange of vows and rings, and music that each couple had selected, and then Watts, the justice of peace, pronounced them married.

"I can't say husband and wife," Watts said. "So I say legally married, spouses for life."