{"id":2077,"date":"2006-01-21T20:15:04","date_gmt":"2006-01-22T03:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2006-01-21T20:15:04","modified_gmt":"2006-01-22T03:15:04","slug":"pro-marriage-equality-ruling-in-maryland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2077","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Marriage Equality Ruling in Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Gay City News<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

A Baltimore trial judge ruled in favor of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking same-sex marriage in Maryland on January 20. The ruling by Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock found that a statute banning same-sex marriages violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Maryland Constitution, which forbids the state from discriminating on the basis of sex. […]<\/p>\n

Focusing “strict scrutiny”\u009d on the marriage ban, Murdock wrote, “There is no apparent compelling state interest in a statutory prohibition of same-sex marriage discriminating, on the basis of sex, against those individuals whose gender is identical to their intended spouses. Indeed, this Court is unable to even find that the prohibition of same-sex marriage rationally relates to a legitimate state interest.”\u009d<\/p>\n

Thus, according to Murdock, the state failed even to meet the lowest legal hurdle for justifying a ban on gay marriage.<\/p><\/div>\n

This pleases me immensely, not just because it’s a victory, but because judge based her decision on a theory of sex discrimination.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is a lower court, so it doesn’t mean that much; the decision has been stayed pending appeals. The big question is, will anti-marriage-equality forces manage to push through a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage before the Maryland Supreme Court ever hears the case? Amending the Maryland Constitution is not especially hard<\/a> (at least, not compared to Massachusetts) – 60% of both houses of the state legislature must approve of the amendment, and once that happens a majority of the voters has to vote for it – so, unfortunately, marriage equality opponents have a pretty good shot. The Maryland House of Reps will be holding hearings January 31st to discuss this court ruling; no doubt someone will propose a Constitutional amendment at that time.<\/p>\n

One sliver of hope: the Maryland state legislature is dominated by Democrats <\/a>(House: 98-43, Senate: 33-14), so maybe there’s a small chance of defeating the anti-SSM amendment, or at least slow-tracking it.<\/p>\n

Judge Murdock’s decision can be read here (pdf file<\/a>).<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: Here’s a Washington Post<\/em> article on the reaction among Maryland’s politicians<\/a>. Shorter version of story: Democrats are fightened and hoping that the Maryland Supreme Court will overturn this decision (what wonderful allies Democrats are!); the Republicans are delighted and hoping that a ballot measure constitutional amendment will bring their voters to the polls. It’s not clear what the Maryland Supreme Court will decide on this issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Gay City News: A Baltimore trial judge ruled in favor of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking same-sex marriage in Maryland on January 20. The ruling by Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock found that a statute banning same-sex … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}