Today the Maryland supreme court legalized gay marriage. In a unanimous ruling the court declared that gay marriages performed in other states must be recognized as legal marriages in Maryland. The case dealt with a lesbian couple married in California but seeking a divorce in Maryland. The court requires the state to permit the divorce as it would with any other marriage whether in-state or out-of-state.
This ruling makes no reference to the current political debate going on in Maryland. Early in the year Maryland's legislature and the governor signed gay marriage into law. Because Maryland has one of those despicable voter veto laws, the anti-gay losers immediately launched a petition drive to put the issue on the November ballot. That process is still underway. But no matter what the outcome, the supreme court says that out-of-state gay marriages are legal in Maryland.
Which to all intents and purposes legalizes gay marriage in Maryland. Gay marriage is legal in the District of Columbia, so gay Marylanders can simply drive to DC, get hitched, and drive back home with a fully legal marriage license that the state must now recognize completely. Earlier in the week Rhode Island's governor issued an executive order requiring the state to recognize out-of-state gay marriages thus effectively legalizing gay marriage there. So we have two big wins in a single week! Hooray for justice and equality.
Maybe this ruling along with Barack Obama's public support of gay marriage will help preserve in-state gay marriage in Maryland. Blacks are a big voter block. Polls taken after Obama's announcement are starting to show movement toward accepting gay marriage among blacks who have previously opposed gay marriage by the widest margin among voter groups. The times are changing fast.
November is the watershed moment for gay marriage. Probably we'll have three states deciding gay marriage (Washington state, Maine, and Maryland) and one state deciding a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage (Minnesota). Supporters of equality and justice for gay people can win all four. If so, that's the effective end of the anti-gay marriage opposition: they're losing in state legislatures, in courts, and soon at the ballot box. Then it's on to the US supreme court for California's Prop 8 and possibly a landmark ruling that sweeps away all the state prohibitions and obstructions and burdens bigots have placed in the way of gay people who simply seek the same opportunities in life that everybody else enjoys. It's becoming clear as a bell now: anti-gay bigotry is losing politics. Republicans had better figure out really quick how to accommodate gay marriage or that party will be by-passed by history and relegated to the dump.
I'm going to enjoy watching the haters get squashed. Couldn't happen to more deserving people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment