17 май 2004 г. - Massachusetts 1st to legally recognize same-sex marriage

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Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in the U.S state of Massachusetts since May 17, 2004, as a result of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional under the Massachusetts Constitution to allow only opposite-sex couples to marry. Massachusetts became the sixth jurisdiction in the world (after the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec) to legalize same-sex marriage. It was the first U.S. state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

On May 16, 2004, Cambridge, which the New York Times described as having "a well-known taste for erudite rebelliousness", decorated the wooden staircases of City Hall with white organza. Hundreds of applicants and supporters in celebratory dress–"glittery party hats and boutonnieres"–gathered in the street. City officials opened the building at 12:01 a.m. May 17 "for a rousing party, with wedding cake, sparkling cider and the music of the Cambridge Community Chorus." Some 262 couples obtained licenses.

The first to wed in Cambridge were Tanya McCloskey and Marcia Kadish at 9:15 a.m. Cambridge City Clerk Margaret Drury was the first City Clerk in the U.S. to perform a legal same-sex marriage. Massachusetts has a three-day waiting period before issuing marriage licenses, but many couples obtained waivers of the waiting period in order to be wed as soon as possible.

A Boston Globe survey found that half of the couples who applied for licenses on the first day had been partners for a decade or more. Two-thirds were women and 30% were raising children. Only the towns that had made an issue of issuing licenses to out-of-staters had appreciable numbers of them. In the first week, 2,468 same-sex couples applied for licenses, including at least 164 from 27 other states and the District of Columbia.

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