nts between potential adoptive or foster parents and children, related persons living together, and people sharing custody of children as well as gay individuals.” The ruling also stated that the amendment “imposes significant burdens on both the expressive and intimate associational rights” of gay men and lesbians “and creates a significant barrier to the plaintiff's right to petition or to participate in the political process.”8 Judge Bataillon's ruling has been touted by opponents of same-gender civil marriage as an example of the need for a federal amendment to prohibit civil marriage, civil union, and domestic partnership for gays and lesbians. Plans to appeal the ruling to the 8th Circuit US Court of Appeals are underway.
In April 2005, Michigan's Attorney General Mike Cox issued a binding opinion instructing local governments, government entities, and public employers (such as school boards and university systems) to cease providing benefits for same-gender partners in future contracts in compliance with the state's 2004 marriage amendment.9 A suit filed against the state based on this interpretation resulted in Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Draganchuk's September 2005 ruling that the purpose of a 2004 constitutional amendment was to ban gay marriage and civil unions, not to keep public employers from offering benefits to gay employees.10 The ruling is currently under appeal.
Ohio's 2004 marriage amendment, regarded as the most restrictive in the nation, reads, “Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.” As a result, judges around the state have dismissed or reduced charges in domestic violence cases, because Ohio's domestic violence law recognizes the relationship between an unmarried offender and victim as one “approximating the significance or effect of marriage,” thereby representing a direct conflict with the amendment's prohibition against such recognition, thus rendering it unenforceable.11
In January 2006, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Brooke Murdock ruled that denying same-gender couples the protections afforded heterosexual married couples is a violation of the Equal Rights Amendment of the Maryland Constitution, which protects against discrimination based on sex. The suit before Judge Murdock was filed against court clerks in several Maryland jurisdictions for the refusal to issue civil marriage licenses to same-gender couples. The ruling stated in part, “When tradition is the guise under which prejudice or animosity hides, it is not a legitimate state interest.” Judge Murdock further noted, “The Court is not unaware of the dramatic impact of its ruling, but it must not shy away from deciding significant legal issues when fairly presented to it for judicial determination. As others assessing the constitutionality of preventing same-sex marriage note, justifying the continued application of a classification through its past application is ‘circular reasoning, not analysis,’ and that it is not persuasive.”12 The case will likely be appealed to the Court of Special Appeals (the state's intermediate appellate court) or the Court of Appeals (Maryland's highest court).
The Maryland ruling resulted in a call from Governor Robert Ehrlich, Jr for state lawmakers to pass a proposed marriage-ban amendment. A bill seeking to send a state constitutional amendment banning same-gender civil marriage to the voters was stopped in the legislature a short time thereafter, with vows from the sponsor to revive the measure before the session adjournment.
The state supreme courts of Alaska13 and Montana14 have ruled that the domestic partners of gay and lesbian civil employees must be granted the same benefits as the spouses of married heterosexual employees. The decision in Alaska has prompted a move by Governor Murkowski