Maryland bishops ask court to affirm state ban on same-sex marriage

Published: 2006-06-30

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- The Maryland Catholic Conference is asking the state's highest court to overturn a lower court ruling that said it was unconstitutional to limit marriage to a man and a woman. The conference -- representing the archbishops of Washington and Baltimore and the bishop of Wilmington, Del., whose dioceses all include parts of Maryland -- filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Maryland Court of Appeals June 26. In a Jan. 20 ruling, Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdock said the state's current ban on same-sex marriage violates the Maryland Declaration of Rights because it "discriminates, based on gender, against a suspect class and is not narrowly tailored to serve any compelling governmental interests." The judge stayed her own ruling pending the outcome of an appeal filed by Joseph Curran Jr., Maryland's attorney general. The Maryland Catholic Conference brief was in support of Curran's appeal.

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