Putting aside for present purposes whatever may turn out to be the view of the Maryland electorate regarding recognition of the performance in Maryland of domestic same sex marriages, the treatment given such relationships by the Maryland Legislature (until recently) may be characterized as a case of multiple personality disorder.The ACS Blog flagged the case. The American Constitution Society is an effort to provide a type of balance to the Federalist Society and other conservative/libertarian outlets, including providing evidence that originalism need not only lead to conservative results.
I'm not a big fan of taking originalism too seriously (though it's always helpful to be able to meet your opponent on their chosen field) but the organization as a whole is much appreciated. For instance, it sponsored the release of Keeping Faith With The Constitution, (now CA Supreme Court Judge) Goodwin Liu and Pamela Karlan (fantasy judicial candidate) as co-authors, the original version free online (an amended version with a free speech chapter was put forth). The common law / people's constitutionalism view it promotes is to me the most logical path to take here. Hopefully, Liu has a future in the federal courts to help it along.
Anyway, the core discussion for this specific ACS blog entry (the website has other material, including videos of panel discussions and book reviews) is GLBT jurors. This is a tricky issue but there has been a trend to erase distinctions in various ways, including reducing the breadth of juror exemptions (if putting Justice Breyer in the jury pool makes sense aside, as a whole, this is a good development). The question remains in specific cases if a juror should be excused for cause and particularly if a peremptory challenge can be used without it being discriminatory. This is tricky when racial bias is alleged (race, e.g., can overlap with other things, such as class or community, my area known to be friendly to civil suits). The USSC extended the rule to gender as well and GLBT can be seen as a logical extension, given gender is so important there. See the article.
As seen, the issue fits into a wider whole. The same applies to the case. The specific issue here is comity, the obligation per state law (this is a state case, most wins in the SSM area of that nature) to recognize out of state marriages (or some other "public act" ... marriages and divorces can result in various "judicial proceedings" that pursuant to the Full Faith and Credit Clause are treated more strictly). The headnote provides a simple English summary, but basically, the ruling settled a state judicial dispute and agreed with an Attorney General's opinion that out of state SSM did not meet the strong “repugnant” to Maryland public policy test, even though state law specifically does not allow (yet: a law has passed but might be challenged by referendum before it comes into force) couples to obtain them in Maryland. Precedents involving common law, incestuous and interracial (in the 1950s) marriages were cited. The one exception was a foreign divorce performed in a jurisdiction deemed inequitable.
Justice Brennan's dissenting opinion in an early 1980s case involving a fired bisexual teacher underlines the breadth of the issues involved in these cases, showing how they fit into a wider whole. The same applies here. Divorce back in the days of "traditional marriage" was often quite hard to come by, Linda Kerber discussing the point in one of her books on the Revolutionary Era. It was a revolutionary thought to recognize that the right to alienate did not just apply to white nations but to other contexts, including slavery and yes the freedom to leave a marriage.
Divorce is a basic aspect of the fundamental right to marriage and DOMA type laws are a major hindrance in this area, beyond the barrier to entry. Maryland is one of a few states (including Rhode Island, New Mexico and New Mexico; New York also was one such state pre-SSM) to have reached a middle ground here though as the opening quote suggests, growing acceptance of the equality of same sex couples leads to various arbitrary seeming policies. Public policy is often a matter of compromise and line drawing that does not seem overly logical if we take things in a vacuum, but at some point, strong protections for same sex couples leads one to wonder why marriage has to be a sine qua non.*
I actually read that Attorney General Opinion [the problem here was that the court itself argued it did not have the power to recognize the marriage, not that the state itself did not wish it to do so] and it was an interesting look at the complexity of the situation. For instance, it cited some precedent where even polygamous marriage was recognized for limited purposes (such as property distribution). States also have different rules here; as a comment recently noted, some states have not recognized out of state common law marriages (NY has). The ruling here was not a pro-SSM ruling per se (ironically allowing the dissolution of one to go forth) but in effect treating them equally to other marriages.
This move "to show hospitality" on an equal basis unless it is crystal clear (thus the felt need for measures like the one in NC though again even on that level, it was woefully overbroad) that state law does not allow it is the basis to "comity" among the states of this union.
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* This underlines the utter stupidity (or unfortunate confusion, for those supporting of SSM) of arguing (or conceding) the USSC not accepting SSM as raising a substantial federal question c. 1970 closes the matter until it changes its mind. Things have changed substantially, including state recognition of the rights of the GLBT community. Baker v. Nelson is a dinosaur and this not being Jurassic Park, it should not scare us.