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Friday January 20, 2006
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Maryland Judge Strikes Down State Law Banning Homosexual 'Marriage'
By John-Henry Westen
BALTIMORE, January 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a ruling issued today, Judge M. Brooke Murdock struck down Maryland's 1973 law prohibiting homosexual 'marriage'. Commenting on the activist nature of the judge, Maryland Senate President Thomas Miller, a Democrat, accused the ACLU and the homosexual activists it represented in the case of shopping-around for a willing judge. "I don't think the same opinion would have been rendered in 90 percent of the other circuits in the state of Maryland," he said.
"There is no apparent compelling state interest in a statutory prohibition of same-sex marriage discriminating, on the basis of sex, against those individuals whose gender is identical to their intended spouses," wrote Murdock in her ruling. "Indeed, this Court is unable to even find that the prohibition of same-sex marriage rationally relates to a legitimate state interest."
Four more times in the ruling, Murdoch indicated that the only "rational" position was to strike down the law which holds marriage to be the union of one man and one woman. Murdock was not moved by testimony indicating that children need a mother and a father. She said, she was "unable to find that preventing same-sex marriage rationally relates to the Maryland's interest in promoting the best interests of children."
An appeal is being considered by Governor Robert Ehrlich's legal team.
To express concerns:
Honorable M. Brooke Murdock
Eighth Judicial Circuit, Baltimore City
600 Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr Courthouse
100 N. Calvert Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
(410)545-0115
See the full ruling online (in pdf) here:
http://www.baltocts.state.md.us/civil/highlighted_trials/Mem...
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