Photo by ShutterstockMaryland may not yet allow same-sex marriage, but it has to grant divorces to same-sex couples. WTOP reports today that Maryland’s highest court has ordered Prince George’s County to grant a divorce to a same-sex couple legally married in California:
Jessica Port and Virginia Anne Cowan legally married in California in 2008.
Two years later, while living in Maryland, they decided to separate and divorce.
However, the Prince George’s County trial judge wrote the “same sex marriage in which the parties hereto participated is not valid pursuant to Maryland law…(T)o recognize the alleged marriage would be contrary to the public policy of Maryland.”
In its written ruling, the appeals court said, “Generally, Maryland courts will honor (out-of-state) marriages as long as the marriage was valid in the state where performed.”
Same-sex marriage was approved by the Maryland General Assembly this year, but won’t go into affect until 2013. In the meantime, opponents are trying to put it on the November ballot.
The D.C. Council recently changed the law to make same-sex divorce easier by allowing couples who were married in the city but currently live outside it to end their marriages.
Martin Austermuhle