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| Evelio Cuellar and Mike Swarthout, a couple for 13 years, voice their support for same-sex marriage during a rally last week in New York. The state’s highest court ruled last week it was constitutionally justified to exclude gay couples from marrying. (Photo by Julie Jacobson/AP) |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: LOU CHIBBARO J COMMENTS
 
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bans in New Jersey, Washington state, Maryland, Connecticut, Iowa and Oklahoma.
In New Jersey and Washington, the two states’ highest courts have heard arguments and decisions are expected within the next several months.
A Maryland Circuit Court in Baltimore ruled in January that the state’s law banning same-sex marriage violates the state constitution’s equal rights clause, which bans discrimination based on gender. The state has appealed the decision, and a final ruling on the case is not expected for a year or more.
A lower court in Connecticut heard arguments in March from attorneys with the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in a case filed by eight same-sex couples seeking the right to marry. The case is expected to take several more years to wend its way through the court system.
It was filed shortly after the Connecticut Legislature passed a civil unions law that provides same-sex couples the rights and benefits of marriage.
GLAD attorney Bennett Klein argued before a New Haven Superior Court judge that the civil union law does not provide the equal protection required under the state constitution. He said civil unions lack the intangible benefits that come with a marriage license, the Hartford Courant reported.
Connecticut’s assistant attorney general, Jane Rosenberg, disputed this assessment, telling the court that a marriage right for same-sex couples doesn’t exist in the constitution. But she said the civil unions law meets the constitution’s requirement to provide same-sex couples equal protection under the law.
“All the rights and benefits have been granted,” the Courant quoted her as saying. “It’s unclear what we’re left with other than the word ‘marriage.’”
In Iowa, Lambda filed suit in December 2005 challenging that state’s ban on same-sex marriage, once again saying the ban violates the state constitution’s equal protection clause. Oral arguments in the state’s lowest court are scheduled for October.
The Oklahoma case has the unusual distinction of being opposed by most gay rights attorneys, who say the conservative leaning courts in the state make a challenge to the state’s marriage law likely to fail, resulting in an unfavorable legal precedent.
Civil rights attorney Mary Kay-Bridger, who filed the Oklahoma case on behalf of two lesbian couples in the Tulsa area, raised more concern among gay rights advocates when she included in the suit a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
DOMA defines marri
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