Supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage clashed before a Maryland Senate committee yesterday, with traditionalists invoking religious convictions and gay rights advocates describing their cause as a civil rights struggle.<\/p>\n
The lengthy hearing, which drew dozens of speakers on both sides of the most divisive social issue the General Assembly will take up this year, was headlined by Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D), who became Maryland’s first elected statewide official to endorse legislation allowing same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n
Gansler’s office had successfully defended the state against a lawsuit by gay couples who sought to overturn a law prohibiting same-sex marriage. But yesterday, the former prosecutor from Montgomery County called same-sex marriage a “moral imperative” and a “basic matter of fairness.”<\/p>\n
“This bill is fundamentally about equality,” Gansler told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “It would be wrong for me to have this job knowing there’s something so wrong in our society and just ignore it.” He said qualms about same-sex unions seem to be limited to older people: “For the younger generation, this is a non-issue.”<\/p>\n