Jul 09, 2004  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

BALTIMORE — The American Civil Liberties Union Wednesday sued the city of Baltimore and four Maryland county clerks claiming that the state’s current law prohibiting gay marriage violates the Maryland Constitution.

The case, Deane vs. Conaway, was filed in Baltimore City Court on behalf of nine same-sex couples and a man whose partner recently died. The lawsuit was filed with the cooperation of Equality Maryland, a statewide gay rights group.

“Maryland’s marriage law is violating the most basic guarantees of equality,” said Ken Choe, staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project. “This is about real harm to real families. The Maryland Constitution demands equal treatment and that means equal treatment in marriage, too.”

Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich quickly denounced the lawsuit on Wednesday, dismissing it as part of the ACLU’s “far left agenda,” and adding that he would support the General Assembly in clarifying the state’s current law prohibiting gay marriage.

“Traditional marriage in my view and the view of most Marylanders and Americans is the cornerstone of our society,” Ehrlich said in a statement. “That used to be common sense.”

Marriage is limited to opposite-sex couples in Maryland under Section 2-201 of the Family Law Article, which provides, “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this state.”

Gay couples share stories
Many of the gay couples bringing the lawsuit attended a news conference Wednesday to share personal stories about the harm they say Maryland’s gay marriage ban has caused them.

Gita Deane, a 42-year-old learning specialist at Goucher College and her partner of 23 years, Lisa Polyak, 43, an environmental engineer for the U.S. Army Medical Department, said that they were motivated to file the lawsuit to protect their two daughters.

“When you have kids, you have this instinctive desire to protect them,” Polyak said. “ I believe that the emotional protections are important to their well being. My kids are stigmatized because the lack of marriage equality harms their emotional and social abilities.”

John Lestitian, a 38-year-old chief code compliance officer for the City of Hagerstown, said he was in a 13-year relationship with his partner Jim, who killed himself in 2003 following a battle with depression. He recalled the anguish he experienced after his partner’s death.

“Surviving a death of a spouse is like surviving an amputation without anesthetic,” Lestitian said.

“When I discovered that Jim’s will was invalid, and that his estate would go to a relative and not me, … it was horrible. I had to negotiate to claim Jim’s body and plan his funeral. The pain that the state causes gay and lesbian families is not right, and it must stop.

“I hope to find love again in my life, and I don’t want a future partner to have to go through what I went through,” he said.

Charles Blackburn, a 71-year-old retiree and his partner, Glen Dehn, 66, also retired, have been together for more than 25 years. They said that as they grow older, securing marriage rights has become more important.

“We are increasingly concerned about medical decision making rights as we grow older,” Blackburn said. “We have heard horror stories of couples kept apart in nursing homes because they weren’t married.”

A DOMA for Maryland?
Dan Furmanksy, executive director of Equality Maryland, said he is hopeful Marylanders would reject an effort to strengthen Maryland’s existing gay marriage ban.

“We think all of these couples are great ambassadors and in addition to taking this case to court, we also have the responsibility to bring this issue to the court of public opinion,” Furmanksy said. “In two years, when this case is brought before the appeals court, we will stand as a progressive state, a beacon of hope for other couples in this country.”

Furmanksy added that Equality Maryland has not finalized its 2005 legislative agenda. He said his group is likely to push to resurrect the Medical Decisions Making Act — a bill that would have granted gay couples the right to make medical decisions for one another — and work on a new bill that would allow state employees to name a beneficiary on their state plan.

According to Choe, the ACLU has pending legal challenges in Massachusetts, Oregon, New York, Washington state, California and Nebraska. He added that other groups have filed lawsuits in New Jersey and Florida to legalize same-sex marriage.