Our Say:Same-sex marriage issue likely to waste legislators' time

Even if the state’s outsized fiscal problems can be resolved in a special session this fall, the General Assembly’s 2008 agenda will be crowded with pending decisions on the environment, planning, economic development, law enforcement — and the list goes on.

There will be plenty to do without a big part of the 90-day session being devoted to a sterile battle between extremes on the issue of same-sex marriage. Yet such a battle is brewing.

In January 2006, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge threw out the 1973 state law that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman. We didn’t think this would stand up...