Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill Thursday that repealed a 1913 law that had blocked gay couples from outside Massachusetts from marrying here.

“We’re being recognized as a married couple,” said Joy Spring, of Middletown, N.Y., who planned to wed Carla Barbano, her partner of seven years, at a ceremony Friday in Provincetown.

Supporters of the repeal of the law, which banned couples from marrying in Massachusetts unless their unions would be legal in their home states, say lifting the ban was not only fair but will have economic benefits.

A state study estimates that more than 30,000 out-of-state gay couples — most of them from New York — will wed in Massachusetts over the next three years. That would boost the state’s economy by $111 million and create 330 jobs, the study estimated.

Opponents say Massachusetts now could become the “Las Vegas of gay marriage,” and they criticized lawmakers for infringing on other states’ rights to define marriage.

Patrick, the state’s first black governor, said he was proud to sign the bill repealing the law, which some say had its roots in trying to block interracial marriages.

Massachusetts in 2003 became the first state to rule gay couples had a right to marry; California recently legalized gay “marriage,” without a residency requirement.

“In five years now, the sky has not fallen, the earth has not opened to swallow us all up, and more to the point, thousands and thousands of good people — contributing members of our society — are able to make free decisions about their personal future, and we ought to seek to affirm that every chance we can,” said Patrick, whose 18-year-old daughter recently revealed publicly she’s a lesbian.

Source – Christianpost.com