Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone wrote a letter to the Massachusetts attorney general May 24 asking for clarification on the attorney general’s request that the city stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples from out of state.

“I would like to register my overall disappointment in your response to this issue,” the mayor wrote. “As matter of law and policy, I believe the Somerville City Clerk has acted correctly in issuing these licenses, and I am disappointed you have chosen to side with the governor on this issue.”

A week has gone by with no response to the letter from Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, said Mark Horan, the mayor’s communications director. In the meantime, the city is waiting to see what happens next.

“We haven’t given the attorney general the names of the couples we have already married, as he asked, but right now we are not marrying any new out-of-state couples either,” Horan said.

The mayor and his staff, along with City Solicitor John Gannon and City Clerk John J. Long, are discussing their next move, which may include legal action, Horan said.

“Any legal steps we take will go through the city solicitor, but we have also had some preliminary conversations about getting further legal help from some private firms on a pro bono basis,” Horan said.

“It’s a delicate situation, because if we provoke the attorney general by resuming marrying out-of-state gay couples, he might bring some sort of enforcement action, like a formal injunction, or fines or penalties against the city clerk,” Horan said.

The central issue in the dispute between City Hall and the attorney general is the validity of a 1913 law prohibiting Massachusetts from marrying couples from other states in which they would be unable to get married.

Curtatone and other supporters of gay marriage allege that the law was intended to deny out-of-state interracial couples from marrying in Massachusetts. As a restriction on interracial marriage, they contend that it was invalidated by the United States Supreme Court in 1967, and no longer carries the force of law.

Reilly does not believe that the law was founded on a racist intent.

“There is not the slightest evidence that this purpose actually motivated the Massachusetts Legislature,” he said in the letter asking Somerville to stop marrying the out-of-state couples.