Judge lands in spotlight(liberal Sun on creator of gay marriage rights as a hero)

Baltimore Sun ^ | January 24, 2006 | Julie Bykowicz

[sickoflibs]

Colleagues describe Murdock, who ruled on same-sex marriage, as even-handed

Margaret Brooke Murdock was once president of the Women's Law Center in Towson, an organization that promotes "equal rights for women and children," according to its mission statement.

Now she is a Baltimore Circuit Court judge, and a ruling last week has thrust her into another equal rights issue - this one a particularly contentious battle playing out at a national level.

Murdock sided with nine gay couples and one man in ruling that Maryland's three-decades-old law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman violates the state's constitution.

The judge ordered the law be overturned, but she stayed her order pending an appeal, which was immediately filed by the state attorney general's office.

Murdock's ruling comes at a time when courts and legislative bodies in several states are taking a look at the divisive issue of same-sex marriage, and it drew immediate praise and condemnation from varied groups, including Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., which called Murdock "antichristic."

Murdock, 56, was not at work yesterday, and she did not return phone calls. Her friends and those who have worked with her say that while she shies away from the spotlight, she has built a reputation as a passionate protector with a keen focus on equality.

She based her ruling on the theory that the law discriminates on the basis of gender, writing that, for example, a woman can marry a man, but Maryland prevents another man from exercising that right.

"Having concluded that preventing same-sex marriage has no rational relationship to any other legitimate state interest, this Court concludes that tradition and social values alone cannot support adequately a discriminatory statutory classification," Murdock wrote in her 20-page opinion.

[sickoflibs]

Maryland is a place like no other. This will not sit pretty with some of the major groups that vote democrat in Maryland, many of which live in Baltimore. This will not go over like the Wal-marts bill did.

[conservative physics]

Every person in Maryland is allowed to marry one person of the opposite sex... how is that discrimination?

impeach her.

[Palpatine]

I think that is one of the major things that needs to be played up by us. THERE IS NO DISCRIMINATION SINCE THE 'RULES' ARE THE SAME, EXACTLY THE SAME, FOR EVERY ONE. I keep saying that to people when the issue comes up, it takes a while for it to register but I always ask them to think about it.

Sorry for 'shouting'...

[muawiyah]

No, just take this ol'ho' down to "the block" and turn her loose at night for the locals to question.

She wouldn't last ten minutes.

[canuck_conservative]

Judicial activism is slowly dragging North America down.

What's the point of even having written laws if some judge is just going to make up their own law?!