If you can't be married, you're not 'domestic'

In a bizarre twist to the gay marriage rollercoaster, an Ohio judge has ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage means no unmarried people can be charged with domestic violence.

Frederick Birk, 42, of Cleveland, is accused of slapping and pushing his live-in girlfriend during a January argument over a pack of cigarettes.

Birk's public defender, David Magee, had asked the judge to throw out the domestic violence charge because of the new wording in Ohio's constitution that prohibits any state or local law that would "create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals."

Before the amendment, courts applied the domestic violence law by defining a family as including an unmarried couple living together as would a husband and wife, the judge said. Now courts can't do that because of the gay marriage amendment, Friedman wrote.

"By mandating that the State deny any legal recognition 'that intends to approximate the design, significance or effect of marriage' to relationships between unmarried individuals, the Ohio Constitution now appears to threaten the limited protections previously available to them by law," he wrote.