Kevin-Douglas Olive says he’s never had a chance to grieve for his partner’s death. He’s too busy fighting his late partner’s family in a legal battle over where to bury the body, he said, a dispute that is mentally and financially exhausting — and completely avoidable if Maryland recognized same-sex marriages.

“I buried him in a Quaker cemetery [as according to his will], but his family wants him exhumed and moved to a Baptist cemetery,” said Olive, a Baltimore City resident and French teacher in a Baltimore County middle school.

As they wait for the Maryland Court of Appeals to release an opinion on the issue, gays, lesbians and their advocates renewed their call Thursday to make Maryland the second state — after Massachusetts — to recognize same-sex marriages. The state argued in December that the high court should overturn a Baltimore City Circuit Court ruling that a Maryland statute defining marriage as between one man and one woman is unconstitutional.

Gay Marylanders unfairly miss out on health benefits, the authority to make decisions during partners’ illnesses and other rights afforded their heterosexual counterparts, said Ken Choe, an ACLU Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Project lawyer who argued the case on behalf of the nine gay and lesbian couples who filed the lawsuit after their requests for marriage licenses were rejected.

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“You are told by the state that you are complete and legal strangers,” said Dan Furmansky, director of Equality Maryland, a civil rights organization.

The case generated 22 legal filings nationwide, including one from Glen Burnie lawyer Owen Taylor on behalf of the Maryland Center for Law and Justice, which opposes gay marriage.

His clients point to the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality to support their side, Taylor said.

The General Assembly voted down a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and woman in this year’s session.

Staff Writer Luke Broadwater contributed to this report.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com