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"My heart still goes pitter-pat." Same-sex Marriage in Massachusetts Ten Years Later

Ten years ago, not one state in the nation allowed same-sex couples to marry. Now 18 states do, including Arkansas, which joined that group yesterday.

Massachusetts was the first. And tomorrow marks ten years since gay and lesbian couples were allowed to tie the knot.

WCAI’s Elsa Partan has the story of one Cape Cod couple who sued the state and won the right to marry.

Since then, they’ve watched as bans on gay marriage around the country have fallen and failed.

Melissa and Tracy of Falmouth
20140516-tracy-melissa.mp3
Melissa Larrey and Tracy Bouton

from left, Melissa Larrey and Tracy Bouton

Melissa Larrey and Tracy Bouton met in college in the 1980s in Boston. They were raising two boys together in Georgia when same-sex marriage became the law of the land in Massachusetts.

That prompted a frantic call from Melissa's mother, who lives in Famouth.

"Great news," she said. "Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts and now you have to move back."

In 2008, they did move back. They got married and now they're raising their two boys in Falmouth.

Elsa Partan is a producer and newscaster with CAI. She first came to the station in 2002 as an intern and fell in love with radio. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. From 2006 to 2009, she covered the state of Wyoming for the NPR member station Wyoming Public Media in Laramie. She was a newspaper reporter at The Mashpee Enterprise from 2010 to 2013. She lives in Falmouth with her husband and two daughters.