Maryland's Gay Marriage Ruling: Can You Spell Confused?

Here is an interesting review from the Washington Post on this week's Maryland Court of Appeals ruling that held that the Maryland Constitution did not require that gays be allowed to marry (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/09/marylands_gay_marriage_ruling.html):

In a narrowly reasoned ruling that acknowledges that social change is happening at a faster pace than legal change, the Maryland Court of Appeals today said it will not be the tool by which gay marriage becomes legal in Maryland. That may happen someday, the court said, but it will have to be elected legislators who make that decision--not the courts. For now, said a majority of four justices on the seven-member court, marriage remains a legal arrangement between a man, a woman and the state--a deal made expressly for the purpose of encouraging procreation.

But three justices said the majority is willfully ignoring both social and legal change, including a long string of moves by Maryland's legislature to assure that gays receive the same guarantees of fundamental rights as other citizens.

The 244 pages of opinions break down like this: The court decided there is no constitutional claim to gay marriage in Maryland, but three of the seven justices said the state should provide people in committed gay relationships the same legal rights as men and women who are protected by marriage laws.

Two justices, Chief Justice Robert Bell and Irma Raker, said that while there is no right to gay marriage, gays must be granted the same rights of marriage as any other citizen. The dissenters said they would have adopted the conclusion of New Jersey's top court, which ruled that "to comply with this constitutional mandate [of equal rights for all], the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel statutory structure, which will provide for, on equal terms, the rights and benefits enjoyed and burdens and obligations borne by married couples."

But the majority says those laws were never intended to deal with sexual orientation. The purpose of the state's Equal Rights Amendment was "to prevent discrimination between men and women as classes," the court ruled, looking back at old Washington Post articles from the 1972 debate over the ERA for guidance on the original intent of that law. And the court concludes that the state's marriage law does not "separate men and women into discrete classes for the purpose of granting to one class of persons benefits at the expense of the other class."

To me the issue is simple: all citizens are to have equal rights. Not similar or parallel rights, but equal rights.