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Loading ...Will Maryland recognize gay marriages?
06.01.2009 6:00pm EDT
Maryland’s attorney general is deciding whether gay marriages performed in other states will be legally recognized by his state, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is a Democrat and a strong advocate for equal marriage. Maryland defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but it also has a “longstanding tradition” of recognizing marriages performed in other states, the Sun said.While Gov. Martin O’Malley and the General Assembly have extended a number of rights and benefits to gay and lesbian couples, they have stopped short of endorsing same-sex unions, the Sun said.
“You can’t understate the significance of being married,” said openly gay Sen. Richard S. Madaleno. “People in our state get married every day, and to be denied the ability to do that is very dispiriting.”
Maryland would be following the example of New York, which recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, though gays and lesbians can’t get legally married in the state.
According to the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution, they should do so.
No state has any obligation to recognize other state’s same-sex marriages. The Full Faith and Credit Clause allows Congress to determine which records and acts are to be recognized between the states and in which manner. The Defense of Marriage Act allows other states to refuse to recognize other states’ same-sex marriages.
I hope they take this step.
Pass a law that gives gays marriage by another name. Recognize unions in other jurisdictions as those unions, whether it’s civil-union or domestic partnership.
Maryland is similar to Illinois–most people there don’t agree with equal marriage, but are okay with civil unions. By 2012 or 2013 that could change; but, in the meantime, get a civil union law passed and have marriages be recognized as civil unions.
Maryland can give gays equal protection NOW. Pressue your reps to make this happen.
if only the governor of our state would declare the same for us !!come on–Jack Markell–give Delaware the same break !!
Age, Gender, Race, and Nationality are not a choice.
Religion is a choice. You can change your religious prefference.
For arguement sake, say homosexuality is a choice. Why should one be a protected and not the other. They are both a choice?
If I have my own religion that says homosexuality is not a sin, etc. Does that mean that I’m being discriminated against?
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Bill S. Said: June 1st, 2009 at 6:54 pm
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No state has any obligation to recognize other state’s same-sex marriages. The Full Faith and Credit Clause allows Congress to determine which records and acts are to be recognized between the states and in which manner. The Defense of Marriage Act allows other states to refuse to recognize other states’ same-sex marriages.
Actually, that has not been tested in court at the present time. Since the Defense of Marriage Act allows “some” marriages to be recognized and prohibits others from being recognized, it appears that there may be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause as well. I suppose that we shall see how the lawsuits will play out because if the Full Faith and Credit clause provides for the recognition of one type of marriage for citizens, then the law will have to be applied equally for all citizens or be in violation of the Constitution of the United States. The fat lady has not sung yet.
Ben W. is right.
Maryland is like Illinois, likely to gain civil unions first several years before marriage.
Maryland had many parallels and similarities to Massachusetts. Except for MA got marriage and we don’t have that yet. But we like MA are a blue state, a Democrat majority state, a state saddled with an antigay GOP gov wanting to ban marriage equality in the local state constitution exact at the same time as MA. We had Robert Ehrlich and MA had Mitt Romney. Both GOP govs, both antigay, both wanting an anti-marriage equality amendment in our local state constitutions.
Now, both MA and MD have gay-friendlier and Democrat govs now. Under O’Malley we MD gays have more rights than under Ehrlich who gave us very little of anything good.
O’Malley at least supports civil unions compared to the previous governor who would give an amendment and nothing else,
BJ. Acting upon your sexuality is a choice. People don’t choose their sexuality.
@Ben–Did you fall asleep in class? Sooner or later, if you don’t call it what it is, it won’t be recognized. Maybe it’ll look nice on a piece of paper, but Connecticut and New Jersey have already demonstrated that pseudo-marriage DOES NOT have to be recognized by your insurance company, by the probate court when your pseudo-spouse dies, or by the hospital if one of you is sick. This isn’t abstract complaining–it’s exactly why Connecticut extended marriage laws to apply to gays, because all kinds of small things that shouldn’t have required litigation were coming into the courts. That’s thousands, or tens of thousands, of dollars for every case. You want Jim Crow? Go to a museum down South and have lunch with him. Meanwhile, don’t visit your wishes on others, because maybe other people want equality rather than glorified toilet paper.
As New York currently recognizes marriages performed in other jurisdictions but at the same time is on the path towards legalizing the practice itself, I wonder if New Jersey is about to follow the same route. And why not, they are side by side states, commuters daily cross the Hudson River between the states largest cities of Newark, Jersey City and New York City itself – definitely a natural fit to have the entire region with marriage equality.
DOMA and DADT should be fully repealed. Obama hates us and lied to us. 11 states still ban SSMs (yellow states on wikipedia maps) unfortunatly, Maryland is a yellow state, not a blue state like New York were they do recognise SSMs (wikipedia maps)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samesex_marriage_in_USA.svg
“have extended a number of rights and benefits to gay and lesbian couples, they have stopped short of endorsing same-sex unions”
What does that mean anyway???????
Remind we Obama:
What was the main justification into changing, modifying or flip-flopping on the policy on DOMA and DADT recently?
@Bill S.
You may be right that the FFC allows Congress to regulate this issue, but that issue is not settled by established caselaw.
More to the point, DOMA is irrelevant to the issue discussed in this article. The question for the state attorney general is whether Maryland’s existing marriage-recognition rules provide for recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriage. While DOMA purports to allow states to ignore out-of-state same-sex marriages, the Maryland legislature has refused for more than a decade to enact a law specifically exercising that option. All Maryland has is an ambiguous 1973 law that does not specifically address out-of-state same-sex marriages.
I was born and raised Maryland and I will always consider it home. The Maryland I know (the Baltimore area)has always had a more enlightened and tolerant attitude about gay issues than many other areas of the country. I hope Maryland takes a step forward towards equality. It would make me bery proud.
Cheese and Crackers,
From a fellow Marylander, one who has lived in another part of Central MD for 43+ years in Montgomery County near the MD/DC line. That area which has a progressive attitude is official gay-friendly Montgomery County which is one of the 2 closest counties to DC. The closer in toward DC one is in Montgomery County, generally the more in common that part of the county has with Northwest DC for liberal and progressive thought, gay friendliness and similarity of beautiful house and landscape styles along the border areas of Southern Montgomery County, MD and upper Northwest DC.
The county as a whole is a good place to gay people to live as the county has gay friendly leadership and this county has a generally good quality of life. SEveral of the reps from my area of the county to Annapolis ARE ALL GAY-FRIENDLY, progressive, hard-working, approachable, and popular with a generally good reputation.
Montgonery County has for employees of its county government with same-sex partners, if I know rights certain benefits, health or insurance benefits, I am not sure several years after our former county executive Duncan who pushed for that what it it entails.
But it was enough to cause 11 county residents to contact Pat Robertson’s legal people who initiated a lawsuit against the same-sex county benefits. The judge disagreed, saying the county was within its authority to have this benefits package that only applies to a few employees of the county government, and just a drop in a multi-million dollar budget of a county as territorially big as ours. Our county stretches from the MD state line with 2 Virginia counties and DC halfway to PA in a central but slightly northwest direction.