Gay marriage in md
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Same Sex Marriage Licenses Issued by Maryland Clerks of Courts
By Monica Scherer
On November 30, 2012 we blogged about the Attorney General’s Opinion on the issuance of identical sex marriage licenses and when the clerks could issue same. It appears that the clerks have followed the guidance of his Opinion as the first licenses were issued Thursday, December 6, 2012 as reported by the Baltimore Sun. Although the couples will not be qualified to wed until January 1, 2013, the Clerks of most Courts around the State own issued the licenses as of Thursday. As reported, Harford County and Prince Georges County are still working out some logistics, but will soon give the licenses to same sex couples as well. While January 1, 2013, is a holiday and most courthouses would normally be closed, some are now considering opening to allow the couples to wed on their first available day to do so.
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By Monica Scherer
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Maryland Attorney General Issues Opinion on When Courts Can Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses
By Monica Scherer
As we explained in our “How to
'Lawfully married': Maryland ushers in 2013 with its first lgbtq+ nuptials
BALTIMORE -- Seven gay couples in Maryland rang in the New Year with wedding bells early Tuesday, the first wave of nuptials since voters in the express backed the legalization of same-sex marriage.
The couples were "lawfully married" rather than pronounced "husband and wife" at the 12:30 a.m. ET ceremony on Unused Year's Day in Baltimore's City Hall.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake officiated at the wedding of the first of the couples, 68-year-old James Scales and 60-year-old William Tasker. Scales and Tasker said they had been together for 35 years.
The mayor joked that everyone had come to honor a relationship that began many years ago -- "and I mean that, many years ago."
Making a statement
Soon after the November vote legalizing gay marriage, Scales, a longtime city employee, asked the mayor to marry the two.
"She wanted to craft a statement to tell gay, womxn loving womxn, transgendered couples that they're welcome here," said the mayor's press secretary, Ian Brennan, of her decision.
Maine same-sex couples marry in first hours of law
Voters in Maryland, Maine and Washington sta
Maryland Marriage Equality
Same-sex couples have been able to marry in Maryland since January 1, 2013. On March 1, 2012, Governor Martin O’Malley signed H.B. 438, a bill that allowed same-sex couples to marry. However, opponents gathered signatures to put a referendum that would have repealed the new law on the ballot. On November 6, 2012, the referendum did not pass. NCLR worked as part of a broad coalition to help hand over the bill and defeat the referendum.
Even before this law went into effect, Maryland already commended marriages between same-sex couples entered in other jurisdictions. On May 18, 2012, the Court of Appeals of Maryland (the state’s highest court), ruled in Port v. Cowan that Maryland must recognize an out-of-state marriage of a same-sex couple if the marriage was valid in the state where the couple married. Under the legal doctrine of “comity,” the court held that Maryland must recognize out-of-state marriages for purposes of divorce and for all other purposes, even if the couple could not have entered into the marriage within the state.
Information about association recognition in other states .
The State of Same-Sex Marriage in Maryland in 2024… and the Challenges of Same-Sex Divorce
This past June, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges, which made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, famous its ninth anniversary. As same-sex marriage has been legal for anywhere from roughly two decades (Massachusetts) to just shy of one decade (nationwide,) analyze has begun showing some important trends related to same-sex couples, marriage, and divorce. Divorce presents singular challenges to same-sex couples so, if you contain made the difficult choice to divorce, having a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer by your side can be essential to getting a fair and appropriate outcome.
According to Maryland Matters, same-sex marriage experienced a massive uptick in the years after the 2015 Supreme Court ruling. Based on estimates from the Census Bureau, Maryland had “about 4,400 same-sex married couples… in 2012, the year before the articulate made it legal.” By 2015, that number had more than doubled to 10,388. After 2015, the number of married queer and lesbian couples has risen to approximately 16,500.
As the years have passed, researchers have studie