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09-19-2007, 03:50 AM
Court upholds Md. gay marriage ban
Plaintiffs vowed to take the fight over gay marriage in Maryland to the Legislature after the state's highest court threw out a suit challenging a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
• Baltimore Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock in January struck down the law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, but the state immediately appealed.
• In a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that the state's 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights guaranteed by the state constitution.
• The court also found that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage.
• The court also found that the state has an interest in promoting procreation and that the General Assembly "has not acted wholly unreasonably in granting recognition to the only relationship capable of bearing children traditionally within the marital unit."
• "Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.
• Don Dwyer, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members, said he would introduce a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as "insurance."
• Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, but nine other states have approved spousal rights in some form for same-sex couples — California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_re_us/maryland_gay_marriage
Source: Associated Press
Plaintiffs vowed to take the fight over gay marriage in Maryland to the Legislature after the state's highest court threw out a suit challenging a law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
• Baltimore Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock in January struck down the law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, but the state immediately appealed.
• In a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that the state's 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights guaranteed by the state constitution.
• The court also found that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage.
• The court also found that the state has an interest in promoting procreation and that the General Assembly "has not acted wholly unreasonably in granting recognition to the only relationship capable of bearing children traditionally within the marital unit."
• "Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.
• Don Dwyer, one of the General Assembly's most conservative members, said he would introduce a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as "insurance."
• Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, but nine other states have approved spousal rights in some form for same-sex couples — California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070918/ap_on_re_us/maryland_gay_marriage
Source: Associated Press