From Baltimore OutLoud

Letter to the Editor (Gay Marriage)

By Dan Furmansky

In response to an editorial published in OUTloud, Equality Maryland would like to clarify its position on civil unions. Equality Maryland believes that it is important to support all roads to equality for our community. Furthermore, we believe that there are many tangible gains that could be made as we travel the long road to marriage equality.

Clearly, civil unions would represent a tremendous and welcome breakthrough for gay couples in Maryland. However, while Mr. Chase advocates a civil-unions compromise, he neglects a few crucial points:

Firstly, the difference between marriage and civil unions is not merely semantic. Marriage in the legal sense is a license by the state, and access to that license is a constitutional right. One can sue the state for denying a marriage license, but not for denying “civil unions,” a concept unbeknownst to the state of Maryland. Marriage licenses have the potential for federal recognition — including access to green cards for foreign-born partners and social security inheritance, for instance — as well as recognition across state lines.

More important than this distinction, however, is the fact that no state has ever passed civil-union legislation without prompting from its judiciary.

If Maryland is to achieve civil unions in the next several years, it is going to be because the litigation underway by the ACLU of Maryland comes to a resolution in our Court of Appeals that falls short of full marriage but mandates civil unions, or because the threat of full marriage equality via the judiciary prompts legislators to find a solution for relationship recognition for same-sex couples, as has been the case in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

Civil unions are not legislatively possible at this time in Maryland, and would not pass the House Judiciary and Senate Judicial Proceedings Committees. Hopefully, our work with legislators will help them to evolve. Equality Maryland has spearheaded a groundbreaking relationship recognition bill, the Medical Decision Making Act, which went to the House Health and Government Operations Committee and passed the House of Delegates in 2004 by a vote of 103-30, with the support of 21 Republicans. It died by just one vote in Senate committee, and has a better chance of passage in 2005 due to committee restructuring. This bill was modeled after similar laws that have passed California, Hawaii, and New Jersey. It takes a “piecemeal” approach we hope will be successful in creating important protections for families headed by same-sex couples, starting with our most urgent needs — those during medical crises, illness, and death.

The lgbt civil rights movement is relatively new, and we have made tremendous gains in a short period of time. With solidarity and through communications with our elected officials, the lgbt community and our allies can make sure that Maryland remains a state free of discrimination.