The governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, will lay out a strategy tomorrow to get marriage equality passed in his state:
Activists have been working for months to persuade him to put his name on the controversial bill and include it in his legislative agenda. “I supported it last year,” he said. “I support it now.”
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O’Malley this morning noted that the recently enacted gay marriage law in New York shows “that we can protect religious freedoms and equality of civil marital rights at the same time.”
Much of the lengthy debate on the issue in Maryland centered on ensuring that churches, synagogues and other religious institutions could opt-out of performing ceremonies their faith does not condone. Supporters accepted amendments in committee and on the Senate floor to beef up that section of the bill — making it clear that churches would not have to change their practices to accommodate gay members.
As is typical, anti-gay marriage factions wanted special rights to discriminate in areas outside the practice of their religion, and they will want them again, but hopefully the New York law will provide a decent blueprint for how Maryland and other wavering states can get this done.
This is the Society for the Defense of Tradition, and they are very serious, you guys, don’t laugh!
They are standing up for tradishnul marriage in Maryland! At one point some people flip them off from a passing car, and the word “Tolerance?” appears on the screen. Being flipped off, for these people is probably not only a hate crime, but also blood libel, since that seems to be one of the new catchphrases for wingnuts. THEN, a guy questions their motives, and they label him an “attacker,” because if there is one thing all conservative religious groups have in common, it is their victim status, which they will remind of of constantly.
The Maryland House has postponed a vote on the marriage equality bill, sending it back to committee, perhaps because supporters didn’t feel it had the votes to pass.
We are upset because the argument for gay marriage is out of step with orthodox Christianity and Judaism and is seen by those who know the Bible as mankind’s way to make the Bible meaningless, and for man to insert his own sinful way. To put it another way, every time someone says that homosexuality is fine and gay marriage is just a “civil rights” issue, it feels like the devil handing us an apple to eat.
That came from a letter to the editor in the Baltimore Sun, in response to the paper’s endorsement of the marriage equality bill making its way through Maryland’s houses of government right now. I don’t usually quote letters to the editor, but that one just made me laugh. It feels like the Devil is Handing them Apples! I personally don’t know how that feels, but I’m not a professional victim, as Fundamentalists are trained to be. Well dude? You live in a secular democracy, and soon you will have to learn to deal with the fact that no, your religious beliefs do not trump my civil rights. So I ask: HOW YOU LIKE DEM APPLES?
CHEYENNE-The Wyoming Senate narrowly voted Friday to stop recognition of same-sex marriages and civil unions from outside the state.
House Bill 74 passed 16-14 after tagging on a last-second amendment guaranteeing out-of-state couples in civil unions access to Wyoming courts.
Because of the amendment, the bill will now head back to the House to approve the changes. The House passed the legislation late last month 32-27.
Supporters of the bill, House Bill 74, said the legislation is needed to resolve a conflict in Wyoming law, which defines marriage as a contract “between a male and a female person” but also recognizes any valid marriage performed outside the state.
A Maryland state Senate committee approved legislation allowing same-sex marriage Thursday afternoon, allowing the bill to move to the full Senate floor for a vote.
The Judicial Proceedings Committee passed the legislation in a 7-4 vote.
Already, gay rights activists are rallying state senators in order to gain the 24 votes needed to pass the same-sex legislation in the Senate and move it to the House of Delegates.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) predicted that the bill will pass, although with a close vote, in the Senate.
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Supporters of the bill believe if it makes it to the House, state delegates will approve the legislation and pass it on to Gov. Martin O’Malley.
O’Malley has pledged to sign the same-sex marriage bill into law.
What do we always say? The more anti-gay wingnuts talk, the more their words are exposed to wider audiences, the more hearts, minds and votes we win. They will never understand why their words do that, but that’s because they’re not normal people.
Maryland – The Senate Judicial Proceedings committee heard 7 hours of testimony last night on whether or not to legalize gay marriage, including from NOM’s Maggie Gallagher. Now one Senator, who was previously a foe, has said her testimony convinced him to support marriage equality.
Senator James Brochin (D) was one of the few Democrat Senators who was opposed to gay marriage. But after listening to testimony from Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), he’s said that her “demonization” of gay families has convinced him that he should side with marriage equality.
Good news for us, bad news for Maggie Gallagher’s Whack-A-Mole show. Nothing is a done deal yet, but it looks hopeful in Maryland:
Now it appears that the wait in Maryland is nearing an end. The State House’s Democratic majorities have been blocked by Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller Jr., who has opposed gay marriage.
But not much longer. “We really feel like 2011 is the year,” said Morgan Meneses-Sheets, executive director of Equality Maryland, the state’s most prominent gay-marriage lobby group.
Miller has given his blessing to a committee realignment that all but ensures that a gay-marriage measure will make it to the Senate floor during this year’s session, which starts Wednesday – and presumably onto the desk of Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who pledged last year to sign it.
Same-sex marriage, for all intents and purposes, already exists in Maryland. Last year, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler issued an opinion that recognized out-of-state gay unions – legitimizing “MARC marriages,” where gay and lesbian couples can simply hop a train down to the District to get hitched before returning home with all the state rights and privileges afforded a married straight couple.
In other words, the debate at this point boils down to whether lawmakers want gay Maryland residents to spend their wedding budgets at home or in the District.
Two days after Governor Lincoln Chafee called on legislators to swiftly legalize same-sex marriage, a pair of lawmakers say they will introduce bills to do just that.
Representative Art Handy, Democrat of Cranston, and Senator Rhoda Perry, Democrat of Providence, said yesterday that they would reintroduce bills to legalize same-sex marriage. The bills died last year in the House and Senate.
The legislation has been introduced several times in recent years, but failed as it faced opposition from Governor Donald L. Carcieri, a Republican, and previous legislative leaders. Democrat Gordon Fox, who is openly gay and a cosponsor of the bill, became House speaker last year.
“I think the fact that we have a governor that’s enthusiastic about the legislation makes a huge difference,’’ Handy said.
If you live in Rhode Island or Maryland, now would be a good time to start calling your representatives.
A majority of senators on a key committee in Maryland now favor legalizing same-sex marriage, making it increasingly likely that the state will join five others and the District in allowing such unions.
Membership changes on the panel, where same-sex marriage bills have previously died, are among a handful of shifts produced by last month’s elections. Collectively, they appear to have tipped the balance on the most high-profile social issue the General Assembly will consider during its upcoming 90-day session.
Republican gains Nov. 2 in other state legislatures are expected to lead to more conservative social policies. But Democrats in Maryland bucked the trend, adding two seats to their majority in the Senate. Moreover, when the General Assembly convenes next month, a few senators who lost primaries will be replaced by Democrats more supportive of same-sex unions.
Watch for the hate groups to start bitching about “activist legislatures” and stuff.
Metro DC Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the Rainbow Youth Alliance (RYA) sent the following letter this week to the Montgomery County Public Schools’ Board of Education.
The school district — located in an otherwise liberal area of Maryland adjoining Washington, D.C. — falsely claims to be required by court rulings to host the antigay fliers of an organization whose leaders call for the imprisonment of all LGBT people, including parents and students. (TWO encourages the SPLC to take note.)
Visit Teach The Facts for complete local background, or check out Truth Wins Out’s articles about PFOX efforts to undermine public education in Maryland.
When Family Research Council spokesman Peter Sprigg told MSNBC on Tuesday that LGBT people should be thrown in prison for their alleged private behavior, it escaped the attention of the news media that Sprigg is also a board member and spokesman for an FRC offshoot called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, which distributes antigay propaganda in public schools.
Sprigg is also one of the few local citizens to serve on a citizens’ advisory board for Montgomery County Public Schools in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs.
Just two days after Sprigg proudly declared that LGBT people of all ages should be imprisoned, the school district sent students home with PFOX brochures. The brochures tell students that if they are same-sex attracted, it is OK to be of two minds, to conceal one’s attractions from friends and family, to be dishonest, and proclaim one’s so-called heterosexuality. And while PFOX opposes any right to self-determination for persons who wish to be honest about their orientation, it doesn’t acknowledge this in the brochures; instead, PFOX portrays students who seek to be sexually honest and free from bullying as if they are oppressing those students wish to hide in shame and to bully or imprison others.
Neither the literature nor the school district tell students any of the following truths: (Read More)
Sprigg is also one of the few local citizens to serve on a citizens’ advisory board for Montgomery County Public Schools in Washington, D.C.’s Maryland suburbs.
