Maryland marriage certificate

Maryland lawmakers take up same-sex marriage bills

One day after President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, the highly charged issue landed squarely in front of Maryland's lawmakers.

Before a crowd that filled the hearing room and overflowed into the hall, the House of Delegates' Judiciary Committee heard testimony on two bills that would amend the state constitution to establish that only heterosexual marriages are valid, and invalidate in Maryland the same-sex marriages of other states.

Our law is silent on marriages from other states, Del. Emmett C. Burns, D-Baltimore County, said in an interview before the hearing. We need to close a door that's open.

Burns is a co-sponsor of HB 728, regarding the state's recognition of same-sex marriages of other jurisdictions. The bill provides that a marriage between two individuals of the same sex that is validly entered into in another state or in a foreign country is not valid in Maryland.

The states surrounding Maryland - Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia - have already invalidated same-sex marriages, he said.

We don't want Maryland to be the dumping ground, Burns said.

Burns introduced similar legislation in 1995 and 1996, after speaking with the chairman of Hawaii's House Judiciary Committee. A court in that state had ruled same-sex marriages to be legitimate, a decision the Hawaii Supreme Court later invalidated.

Same-sex marriages are bad policy, educationally, legally, religiously and socially, Burns said, a statement he would repeat hours later before the Judiciary Committee. If [this] becomes a policy, textbooks will teach that this is natural, normal, acceptable.

For Jean Carr and Elizabeth Armstrong, it already is. Together for 23 years, the Gaithersburg women were married on Feb. 16 after waiting 12 hours in a San Francisco drizzle.

We hope that our San Francisco certificate will be recognized in the state of Maryland, Carr said before the hearing. I'm hoping we'll have a statewide debate on this issue.

They want their children to have inheritance rights in case something happens to one of them, they said.

Legally in Maryland, we're a one-parent family; in reality we're a two-parent family, Carr said.

House Bill 16, the legislation sponsored by Charles R. Boutin, R- Harford-Cecil, is a constitutional amendment to establish that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid. While the concept is already embodied in Maryland's Family Law Article, Boutin told the Judiciary Committee that the statute could be changed in any future session of the Legislature.

I do not take a constitutional amendment lightly, he told the committee. This would place in the hands of the voters of this state the definition of marriage.

But some, such as Del. Adrienne A. Jones, D-Baltimore County, question the need for the amendment.

We need to concentrate on the budget, not what happens in a person's home, she said at a pre-hearing news conference sponsored by Equality Maryland, a civil rights organization.

Del. Susan C. Lee, D-Montgomery, who also attended the news conference, seemed to agree. We need bills to strengthen our families, not tear them apart, she said. These do nothing to protect the institution of marriage.

Before the committee, their colleagues questioned Burns and Boutin on potential issues, such as what might happen if a same-sex spouse wants to visit an injured partner in a Maryland emergency room. If Maryland does not recognize same-sex marriages, the spouse would not have that right, Burns responded.

But Burns, who spent two decades working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was disturbed by allegations that his legislation is discriminatory.

I resent anyone who compares [sexual] preference with race, he told the committee. Don't say your discrimination is the same as mine.