Add this to the billion reasons I’m proud to be a Masshole. 
After the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that “equal protection” means… well, “equal protection,” and thus gays could marry (being entitled to equal rights under the law), then-governor Mitt Romney was apoplectic. Romney pushed for a state constitutional amendment. Losing that battle, he then invoked a long-forgotten 1913 Massachusetts law, which provided that if a union would not be legal in the couple’s home state, the couple could not be married in Massachusetts. That law was passed to prohibit out of state mixed-race couples from coming to Massachusetts to marry (we do have a bigoted past).
Mass Governor Deval Patrick had some choice words as he signed a bill repealing the 1913 law.
Patrick said the repeal shows that “equal means equal” in Massachusetts, where a 2003 ruling by the state’s highest court made gay marriage legal a year later.
“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,” Patrick said. (source)
