Feel the Homomentum!

Woot! Maryland to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other places:

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) declared Wednesday that Maryland will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and that its agencies should immediately begin affording gay married couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.

With Gansler's decision, Maryland in effect joins [Washington D.C.] and a handful of states including New York that recognize same-sex marriages performed in four New England states and Iowa. [D.C.] also has its own measure legalizing those unions that is expected to take effect next week.

Gansler, a supporter of legalizing same-sex marriages, was asserting his authority as the top legal adviser to state agencies to answer a question that experts say had been left unclear by Maryland law. He was responding to a legislator's request that he issue an opinion.

The attorney general's opinion unleashed a torrent of emotions from both gay rights advocates and those opposed to same-sex marriage, adding a potentially explosive issue to election-year politics in Maryland. It is likely to be quickly challenged in court, Gansler acknowledged.

...In a news conference, Gansler went beyond the written opinion, saying his writing should dictate how state agencies respond when same-sex couples from elsewhere request benefits and legal protections.

"It's not that foreign of a concept. I mean, it's just people. It's just like any other heterosexual couples," Gansler said. "However a heterosexual couple is treated that was validly married in Maryland or elsewhere, [a same-sex couple] will be treated like that here in Maryland, unless and until a court or the legislature decides differently."

I really love his matter-of-factness about it. While opponents are going apoplectic, Gansler just gives a straightforward soundbite about it, casually underlining that equality isn't a radical notion.

(Or shouldn't be.)

Del. Heather R. Mizeur (D-Montgomery), an openly gay delegate ... was joined at the [celebratory news conference Wednesday afternoon] by her spouse, Deborah.

The couple held a marriage celebration in Maryland in 2005 and was legally married in California in 2008. At the news conference, Mizeur held up a copy of their marriage certificate.

"The [attorney general's] opinion says my state can and should recognize my marriage," Mizeur said.

Blub.

This will see a court challenge, and opposition will be fierce and obnoxious and rude and unfair and hateful, but it also has the potential to move Maryland one step closer to legalizing same-sex marriage.