[Vision2020] Judge Rejects Maryland Law Banning Same-Sex Marriages

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (January 21, 2006) Spokesman Review -

 

The sun is shining a little brighter and warmer in Maryland this morning.

 

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Judge rejects Maryland law banning same-sex marriages 

Brian Witte

Associated Press

January 21, 2006

 

BALTIMORE - A judge on Friday struck down a 33-year-old Maryland law against
same-sex marriage, agreeing with 19 gay men and women that it violates the
state constitution's guarantee of equal rights.

 

The ruling by Judge M. Brooke Murdock rejected a state argument that the
government had a legitimate interest in protecting the traditional family
unit of heterosexual parents.

 

"Although tradition and societal values are important, they cannot be given
so much weight that they alone will justify a discriminatory" law, she
wrote.

 

The judge immediately stayed her order to give the state time to file an
expected appeal in Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

 

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the American Civil Liberties
Union on behalf of nine couples and a man whose partner died. It named court
clerks in Baltimore city and Prince George's, St. Mary's, Dorchester and
Washington counties as defendants and challenged a 1973 state law specifying
that marriage is a union of one man and one woman.

 

Plaintiffs' lawyers said the ban violates equal rights guaranteed by the
state constitution.

 

Murdock agreed with the plaintiffs, writing that she was "unable to find
that preventing same-sex marriage rationally relates to Maryland's interest
in promoting the best interests of children."

 

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Take care, Moscow.

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown

 

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