Nonresident gay couples may wed

Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill revoking a 1913 law that prohibited weddings of same-sex couples if their unions wouldn’t be recognized by their home states. The law was originally passed to prevent interracial couples from coming to Massachusetts to marry.

Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to allow same-sex marriages in May 2004, after its highest court ruled that gays and lesbians had a constitutional right to wed. (California became the second state in June of this year.) Then-Gov. Mitt Romney invoked the 1913 statute as a protest.