Columnist Gail Collins of The New York Times recalls the good old days when then-Gov. Mitt Romney revived a forgotten law to keep Massachusetts from becoming “the Las Vegas of same-sex marriages.”

By next week, the Massachusetts Legislature is expected to overturn that law and open the state to thousands East Coast same-sex couples who can't marry in their own states. What a difference an economy in the toilet makes. Says Collins:

With the economy the way it is, becoming the Las Vegas of anything whatsoever began to sound like a good deal. California has been raking in money from weddings of out-of-state gay couples since a court made same-sex marriage legal there.

The Massachusetts change opens a second front for the LDS Church, which has called on its members to fight for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages in California.

But with a long recession settling in, is California willing to abandon the economic boost gay marriage has brought?