Sen. Muse, Marriage Equality, and the Get Bill

In a way, this year’s debate in the General Assembly over the civil marriage equality bill echoes last year’s legislative debate on Orthodox Jewish divorce law. In each case, part of the debate centered on the blurring of the line between civil marriage and religious marriage.

One of the most contentious bills to reach the Senate floor in 2007 was what was commonly referred to as “the get bill.” A purely religious divorce within Orthodox Judaism, a get (Hebrew גט) has no consequence on the status of a couple’s civil marriage. Under the religious rules of Orthodox Judaism, it is solely within the discretion of the husband to grant a get. Without it, civilly divorced women — who are free to remarry civilly — are still considered married within their religion and do not consider themselves free to date, remarry, or have new families. Under the get bill, upon the request of either spouse, Maryland would have refused to grant a civil divorce unless each spouse attested that no religious barriers remained to remarriage. As a result, a couple’s marital status under Maryland's civil law would have been dependent on the couple’s marital status under religious law.

A closely divided Senate voted the get bill down, 22-22. Many of the bill’s opponents noted the clear distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. They realized that a group’s religious definition of marriage and divorce, even though it may date back thousands of years, was simply not relevant to how the state of Maryland defines civil marriage and divorce.

One of those who opposed the get bill was Sen. Anthony Muse, who a year later is a pivotal committee vote on the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act - a bill that expressly recognizes and protects the distinction between religious and civil marriage.

Sen. Muse is the founder and leader of the Ark of Safety Christian Church, and his religion does not recognize marriages between two men or two women. He has strong religious beliefs on this issue.

I hope that this year, as in 2007, Sen. Muse will recognize that religious beliefs about when two people are married are not relevant to how Maryland defines civil marriage.