Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Monday, January 23, 2006

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has ruled that Maryland's law against same-sex marriage "cannot withstand constitutional challenge," a key ruling in the volatile national debate on gay rights.

"After much study and serious reflection, this court holds that Maryland's statutory prohibition against same-sex marriage cannot withstand constitutional challenge," Judge M. Brooke Murdock wrote in her decision.

From Hawaii to Massachusetts, courts have ruled in favor of allowing gay people to marry. In the America we grew up in, it is flat out illegal to stop gay people from equal marriage rights, and the courts have held this position time and again.

The reaction from the right is to say: "America offers too much freedom, so let's trash the Constitution."

This is why 19 states have constitutional amendments outlawing marriage rights. But make no mistake, the only way that marriage can be stopped is to make America less free and more authoritarian. Let us hope the Maryland Supreme Court also interprets the Constitution in a way hat is consistent with the liberty it so clearly provides.

Also, in Washington State, the House passed a much anticipated gay rights bill by a 60-37 vote and kept the legislation on track for expected passage in the Senate. Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, took the lead on the bill.

"This discrimination is a reality," Murray said. He asked members to appeal to the "better angels of our nature" and send a message of inclusion by voting in favor of the bill.

From the courthouse to the people's house, change is slowly happening across the United States.

3 Comments:

Why go through all the machinations of changing State constitutions when we all know the final resolution will be decided whenever the anti-gay marriage amendment to the nation’s Constitution is resolved. Skip forward past all these States rulings and finally get a pronouncement from the Supremes on our highest court to invalidate all these State constitution amendments/resolutions.

I want to resolve it now…even with a conservative-stacked Supreme Court!

Or put the amendment to the U.S. Constitution to a vote by the American public now! I’m feeling fairly confident an anti-gay amendment** will not pass.

And then, how do we get these ‘amendments/resolutions’ off the Constitutions of all those States? The same way we get the sodomy laws off the books?

**We need to keep calling it what it is. Forget the clever semantics of calling it the Federal Marriage Amendment.
posted by Anonymous, at 1/23/2006 12:10 PM

The gatherers of signatures for anti-gay constitutional amendments in Florida and California have both come up short and were not able to gather the required number of signatures to get the measures placed on the ballot in those states. Things are indeed changing. Maybe Americans are finally beginning to awaken to the shame of their prejudices.
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