Reprint from Annapolis Gazette

Gay marriage ruling reopens state's debate

by Steven T. Dennis
Staff Writer

Nov. 24, 2003

Legislators plan bills supporting, opposing

ANNAPOLIS -- The decision of Massachusetts' high court to force its legislature to approve gay marriages has helped stoke an already heated debate in the General Assembly.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this year banning anti-sodomy laws, some Maryland lawmakers, including members of House leadership, said they would press for civil unions to give gay couples the same rights as married ones. Some are now calling for gay marriage outright.

Meanwhile, conservative Democrats and Republicans said they plan to reintroduce legislation known as the Defense of Marriage Act that would outlaw recognition of gay unions performed in other states. They said the Massachusetts decision, which gives that state's legislature 180 days to pass a law codifying the ruling, makes such a law urgent. Gay rights activists are already contemplating getting married in Massachusetts and suing for recognition in other states, including Maryland.

"The whole thing is, why should we impinge on society something that is only going to affect less than 1 percent of the population?" asked Del. Carmen Amedori (R-Dist. 5A) of Westminster, one of the sponsors of the Marriage Act bill.

Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr. (D-Dist. 10), a Baltimore minister, also will sponsor the legislation. Burns said earlier this year that he would lead the fight against gay marriage, arguing it would lead to the "effeminization" of men and lead to economic and social problems.

"I need Emmett on that bill so that it doesn't appear that this is just a Republican homophobia thing, because that's not what this is about at all," Amedori said.

Gay marriages would burden businesses because they would have to provide health and other benefits to gay spouses, Amedori said, adding that if gay marriage is approved, unmarried heterosexuals also should get those benefits.

"I'm a live-and-let-live person," she said. "Basically, what we're talking about is a sexual orientation. I don't believe that what someone does in their bedroom is something that the government should get involved in."

Ehrlich says no

But Del. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Dist. 18) of Kensington said gay people should have the right to marry, which he said would promote stability in relationships and in society and end discrimination in tax policy and benefits. For example, he said, gay couples must pay transfer taxes to add their partners to housing deeds; married couples do not.

Madaleno, one of two openly gay members of the legislature, should have support from much of the House leadership, several of whom backed gay marriage in a candidate survey by Free State Justice, a gay rights organization, before last year's election. House Environmental Matters Committee Chairwoman Maggie L. McIntosh (D-Dist. 43) of Baltimore, the other openly gay legislator, also has backed recognition of gay unions.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) strongly denounced gay marriage in a Nov. 29 interview on WBAL radio in Baltimore, saying it "will not be the public policy of the state of Maryland as long as I'm here."

Ehrlich, who has said he is libertarian when it comes to what people do in the privacy of their own homes -- even to the point of signing a medicinal marijuana bill into law after this years session -- said gay marriage is a different story.

The governor described marriage between a man and woman as a bedrock of society. "I'm not going to contribute to the denigration of that bedrock," he said.

Ehrlich was one of 342 House members to approve a 1996 law signed by President Clinton denying federal recognition of gay marriages and allowing states not to recognize gay unions performed elsewhere. Thirty-seven states have enacted Defense of Marriage Act laws.

Maryland has been among the more liberal states when it comes to gay rights, notably with the passage in 2001 of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's law outlawing employment and housing discrimination. Opponents of expanding rights for homosexuals range from the Catholic Church to groups such as TakeBackMaryland.

Already, the rhetoric has reached Biblical proportions.

"I think it would destroy our Judeo-Christian faith that this country was founded on," said Sen. Alexander X. Mooney (R-Dist. 3) of Frederick, who led the unsuccessful filibuster of the 2001 gay rights bill. "We have to as a legislature stand up to the radical homosexual agenda."

Look into adoption law

Mooney said he backs an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban gay marriage, and worries that gay marriages would result in children being taught in school that it is an acceptable lifestyle and would hurt businesses by forcing them to provide benefits.

"The people I talk to are outraged about a court trying to redefine marriage in a very radical way and trying to destroy the notion of family," he said. "A family is a mother and father. It's not two mothers, and it's not two fathers."

Mooney said he also plans to look at the state's adoption law, expressing surprise that gay people are allowed to adopt.

"I think it's morally wrong. ... To me it's so hard to understand why as a state we'd want to put a little baby in a home absent of a mother and a father," he said.

Madaleno said the reactions to the possibility of gay marriage have been vastly overblown.

"The news of marriage's demise has been greatly exaggerated," he said, likening the debate to previous debates over property rights for women or legalization of interracial marriages. "In each and every case, conservatives said this was the end, and it survived just fine."

Other than for the gay couples who would benefit, Madaleno said, "there would be little difference between the day after same-sex marriage was allowed and the day before. We're still going to be stuck in traffic on the Beltway. ... Life will go on."