Question 6 in Maryland

Question 6
Referendum Petition
(Ch. 2 of the 2012 Legislative Session)
Civil Marriage Protection Act

Establishes that Maryland’s civil marriage laws allow gay and lesbian couples to obtain a civil marriage license, provided they are not otherwise prohibited from marrying; protects clergy from having to perform any particular marriage ceremony in violation of their religious beliefs; affirms that each religious faith has exclusive control over its own theological doctrine regarding who may marry within that faith; and provides that religious organizations and certain related entities are not required to provide goods, services, or benefits to an individual related to the celebration or promotion of marriage in violation of their religious beliefs.

I have had an interesting discussion about marriage today.  My sister and her girlfriend have recently moved in together and they were discussing the future.  As the mature adults they are, they've decided that they aren't going to seriously consider marriage until they see how the next year goes.  Living with someone is entirely different from dating and you learn so much more about the person when you have to work through everyday challenges and problems.  But the idea is on the table for future discussion and is not disagreeable to either of them.  However, they don't want to just have a Wedding and then think of themselves as married.  They want their marriage to be legally recognized and protected.  So I now have completely selfish reasons to want Maryland to pass the Same-Sex Marriage legislation on Tuesday.

They also discussed what happens if legislation is passed that will not recognize Same-Sex Marriages on the Federal level.  The possibility, given careers and other life events, of my sister and her girlfriend moving to another country for these legal protections is not out of the question.  I've written before about how close my sister and I are and that I wish we lived closer to each other.  So if our country fails to recognize this civil right of its citizens, they will push my sister further away from the family.  For so many people, the Same-Sex Marriage legislation is an abstract concept.  It's something that has no bearing on their lives whatsoever, except to say that it does or does not hold with their belief system.  This will directly affect my family and it makes me so nervous about the outcome of Tuesday's election. 

My Business Law professor has talked about it several times in class.  He brings it up every time we study a law that has the marriage caveat.  He doesn't give his opinion or tell us what we should think, he just offers us the facts and tells us to make up our own minds.  Right now we're studying property law.  I didn't realize that if my father were to get in a car accident and be sued for medical bills, that he and my step-father would be forced to sell their house so that dad's half of the assets would cover that debt.  If their marriage were legally recognized in the state of Maryland, their house would be protected. And there are so many instances where a marriage license provides this automatic protection or entitlement.  Yes, there are a lot of other legal protections a same-sex couple could put in place without a marriage license but there isn't an alternative for this property right.  My dad and his husband would be treated the same as if my sister and I owned a house together no matter what.

Our entire society is structured to encourage people to get married, for religious purposes or not.  A read through Samhita Mukhopadhyay's Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life provides excellent examples of how we're taught that one is not really an adult or successful until one is married.  Yet, as a society, we deny homosexuals the ability to do so.  How can one look at our society, with its social and legal structures, and tell me that marriage is strictly a religious thing?