BOSTON (AP) – Former state Sen. Cheryl Jacques, now a national gay rights leader, married her longtime partner Sunday in a private ceremony at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, four days after she addressed the Democratic National Convention calling for “marriage equality.”

Jacques and Jennifer Chrisler have two-year-old twin boys, Tommy and Timmy.

Jacques, of Needham, left the state Senate in January after 12 years in office to take over as president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based gay rights group.

She and Chrisler remain residents of Massachusetts and therefore could legally wed here under the state’s November high court decision, which legalized gay marriage as of May 17. Gov. Mitt Romney has said that the case only applies to in-state residents, citing a 1913 law barring the recognition of marriages that would not be legal in a couple’s home state.

Jacques returned to her home state last week to speak at the convention. She has become a prominent national figure in the ongoing gay marriage debate, which has become an issue in the presidential campaign.

AP-ES-08-03-04 1627EDT