Delaware same-sex marriage bill unveiled

Doug Denison, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal | USA TODAY

WILMINGTON, Del. — Legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in Delaware will face its first legislative test next week in a House of Representatives committee hearing scheduled for next Wednesday.

House Bill 75 was unveiled Thursday by a group of mostly Democratic supporters, including Gov. Jack Markell, who has said he will sign the same-sex marriage bill should it make it to his desk.

A warm wind buffeted the crowd of marriage-equality proponents gathered in Freedom Plaza in downtown Wilmington for the introduction of the bill.

"I had the freedom to marry the person I loved. Let's let our brothers, our sisters, our families, our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers and our children have the freedom to marry the person they love," said Rep. Melanie George Smith, D-Bear, the prime House sponsor of the bill.

The legislation, which has 23 co-sponsors in the House and Senate, deletes a prohibition against same-sex marriages added to Delaware law in 1996 and effectively supplants the same-sex civil-union statute enacted in Delaware in 2011.

It also includes language to ensure that any references to marriage, spouses and their children in Delaware law are applied equally to same-sex married couples, and that those couples will be afforded the same rights as opposite-sex couples to litigate divorces and child custody disputes in Family Court.

The bill also makes clear that any legal definition of a dependent, family, husband, wife, widow, widower or next-of-kin would cover same-sex married couples. Same-sex spouses also would be permitted to enter their names on birth certificates.

Churches and clergy members would be specifically protected from being compelled to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony if they choose not to, according to the bill.