Support NorthStar News - Make a Donation

video icon  Video of the Week

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010)

Search Past Issues

July 12, 2012

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Performs Marriage Ceremony for Barney Frank and His Partner

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick married U.S. Congressman Barney Frank and his partner, Jim Ready, during a ceremony on Saturday in ceremony in Newton, Mass.

"At the request of the congressman, this ceremony will be short and to the point," Gov. Patrick told the Boston Globe.

Frank, a 72-year-old Massachusetts Democrat, met Ready, 42, at a 2005 political fund raiser, according to The New York Times. Frank, who announced that he is retiring from Congress in 2013, is the first member of Congress to marry someone of the same sex.

Same-sex marriage in Massachusetts was legal as of May 17, 2004, as a result of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional under the Massachusetts constitution to allow only heterosexual 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.

Gov. Patrick is the nation's only African-American governor.

The Northstar News & Analysis, Inc.
Chicago, IL | 312.504.0223
Copyright © The Northstar News & Analysis, Inc.
Contact Us: info@TheNorthstarNews.com
Privacy Policy

My statusContact Us on Skype