MD Attorney General Issues Favorable Marriage Opinion

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler made big news on Wednesday by finally issuing an advisory opinion (53 page pdf) on whether Maryland law allows recognition of legal same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. His conclusion? It does!

Law Dork Chris Geidner analyzes the opinion:

The A.G.’s Opinion basically says that the law could be interpreted so as to allow out-of-state marriages to be recognized and that Gansler believes the Maryland courts would decide that way. He reaches this conclusion despite the state’s ban on performing same-sex marriages in the state.

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Nonetheless, to the extent that Gansler determined the current legal landscape would result in a court decision upholding out-of-state recognition, the opinion set the law as it stands in Maryland unless the courts rule otherwise.

Interesting side note, some of the stilted and awkward language in the opinion comes from the opinion’s steadfast avoidance of whether recognition of out-of-state marriages is required, which would have gotten into the due process and equal protection arguments that marriage equality-watchers know also would apply to the state’s prohibition on performing same-sex marriages in the state. It is in that sense that the opinion is quite limited.

What this means is that agencies will begin adopting regulations and policies to allow for recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages. This, obviously, will include the District of Columbia, where the marriage equality bill is to take effect on March 3. The opinion noted that such changes will be made to the extent possible when not constrained by federal law (primarily, the Defense of Marriage Act). In other words, there are still complications to be resolved.

Equality Maryland will be hosting a national blogger call Friday morning at 11:30am EST but I am supposed to be at the Providence airport trying to get back to Los Angeles despite the snowicane on the Eastern Seaboard.

It will be interesting to see how the Maryland news will interact with the fact that starting March 3rd (next Wednesday!) same-sex couples will start being issued marriage licences in the District of Columbia, which neighbors Maryland.

The main question to be answered is:

Starting March 3rd, 2010, can Maryland residents go to DC (which could be as easy as getting on the Metro for some of them), get legally married in DC and be considered legally married in Maryland as well?

I suspect the answer is YES. Stay tuned.