Maryland court backs marriage limits

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ANNAPOLIS — Maryland's highest court ruled yesterday that marriage can be only between one man and one woman.

The Maryland Court of Appeals decision overturns a lower-court ruling that would have allowed homosexuals to "marry" and upholds a 1973 state law limiting marriage to between one man and one woman.

"It is a wonderful day. This is great news," said Delegate Don Dwyer Jr., Anne Arundel Republican, who has introduced a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual "marriage" for three consecutive years in the Assembly.

Four judges on the seven-member panel ruled the state's 1972 Equal Rights Amendment did not apply to sexual orientation. Three judges, including Chief Judge Robert M. Bell, dissented.

Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote the 109-page majority opinion, with Judges Alan M. Wilner, Dale R. Cathell and Clayton Greene Jr. — considered to be the swing vote on the court — concurring.

Judge Harrell called the argument that denying a marriage license is a civil-rights violation "beguiling."

He wrote that sexual orientation does not qualify as an "immutable characteristic" the same way that race or ethnicity does in determining equal rights under the law.

The ruling marks the end of years of legal battling over the issue, though both sides say they will continue the fight in Maryland's General Assembly.

Nine homosexual couples sued Baltimore City in 2005 for denying them marriage licenses.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock ruled the city denied the plaintiffs their constitutional rights based on gender discrimination, but the state appealed the ruling last year and won the case yesterday.