When the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying was illegal, everyone knew that it marked the beginning of a long war. No one suspected, however, that the next major battle would be sparked by Governor Mitt Romney — an implacable foe of gay marriage — who dusted off an antiquated 1913 state statute (Chapter 207, Section 12) that forbade Massachusetts city and town clerks from performing marriages for out-of-state couples who could not marry in their home states. The law was intended, in large part, to prevent interracial marriage. While the intent of the Massachusetts law was voided in 1967 by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia, the law still stands because race was not specifically invoked in the statute. And so Romney insisted that it be enforced against all same-sex couples whose states ban gay marriage. After all, claimed the governor, the law is the law. And last week, with only one dissenting vote, the SJC agreed.
Well, plenty of laws on the books do not get enforced. Here is a quick sampling. Enforcement, anyone?
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL LAW, CHAPTER 272, SECTION 14 forbids adultery, and anyone found guilty should be imprisoned for not more than three years or by “a fine of not more than five hundred dollars.” (This statute was upheld by the SJC in Commonwealth v. Stowell in 1983.)
CHAPTER 272, SECTION 18 forbids fornication (not defined in the statute) and mandates imprisonment for not more than three months or by a fine of not more than thirty dollars.
CHAPTER 272, SECTION 17 forbids both incestuous marriage and sexual activities for a whole range of relatives, including in-laws. Culprits “shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 20 years.”
CHAPTER 272, SECTION 36 forbids “willfully” blaspheming “the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world” or “exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures.” Punishment: “imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars.”
CHAPTER 272, SECTION 33 forbids exhibiting “for hire an albino person, a minor or mentally ill person who is deformed or a person who has an appearance of deformity produced by artificial means.” Fine: “not more than five hundred dollars.”
CHAPTER 272, SECTION 39 forbids “selling goods and provisions, caring for horses, gaming, horse racing or exhibits near camp meeting for religious purposes.” Fine: “not more than twenty dollars.”
CHAPTER 272, SECTION 63 forbids people over seventeen from “asking charity within his own town” and from roving “about from place to place begging, or living without labor or visible means of support,” and it deems that person “a tramp.” If the person has “no residence in the town within which the act is committed, or the riding upon a freight train of a railroad,” this is “prima facie evidence that such person is a tramp.”
