Marriage Dead in Maryland?

Two delegates whose yes votes are needed to pass marriage equality in Maryland were nowhere to be found during a scheduled vote Thursday, and now Sam Arora, who cosponsored the bill, is reportedly planning to vote no.

By Advocate.com Editors

Two delegates whose yes votes are needed to pass marriage equality in Maryland were nowhere to be found during a scheduled vote Thursday, and now Sam Arora, who cosponsored the bill, is reportedly planning to vote no.

Del. Jill Carter has pledged support for the bill but was out sick today (previously she raised concerns about the legislation). Arora, who has been wavering on his support for the bill, reportedly told Del. Kumar Barve he's now planning to vote against it. He was missing in action for the scheduled vote Thursday.

"I don't know what to think," Barve, who is the lead sponsor of the bill, told Metro Weekly Thursday night. "He told me that he was going to vote against it on the floor. I've been in the legislature for quite a while and nothing is a reality until you actually push the button. And these are hard issues. But he came to me and told me that he was having difficulty with the concept of it."

Arora campaigned heavily on a gay rights platform, including support for marriage equality. On Thursday, he tweeted that he had been "hearing from constituents, friends. Please keep sending your thoughts (sam.arora@house.state.md.us). Thinking & praying hard."

Barve said he has no idea what caused Arora to change his mind.

"Is it unusual for a sponsor to change his mind on a piece of legislation that they've sponsored? No, it's not. People do that all the time, but not on big social issues like this. It's somewhat unheard of."

Hours before the decision to delay the vote, Gov. Martin O'Malley urged lawmakers to pass the legislation.

There is a chance a vote could happen Friday — 12 votes are needed to pass.

Read the full story here.

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Maryland Marriage Bill Advances

By Julie Bolcer

A debate predicted to last the entire day and beyond took only two hours Wednesday morning as Maryland senators voted 25-22 shortly after noon to advance the marriage equality bill to a third and final reading on Thursday followed by a final vote.

During the morning’s discussion, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act was subjected to a barrage of proposed amendments. Proposals to exempt religious groups that provide educational services and insurance coverage succeeded, but attempts to obtain exemptions for public officials and teachers failed, as did an adoption amendment that generated intense but controlled discussion.

Sen. Bryan Simonaire, a Republican from Anne Arundel County who proposed to exempt teachers from presenting marriage equality based on their religious beliefs, repeatedly raised the specter of “unintended consequences” to the marriage equality bill, such as school children reading books about same-sex couples.

Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Montgomery County, led the debate in favor of the marriage equality bill and consistently countered opponents’ arguments. At one point, he dismissed an effort by Sen. C. Anthony Muse, a Prince George’s County Democrat, to remove the phrase “religious freedom” from the bill’s title because, Muse argued, the bill was focused on legalizing same-sex marriage.

“We are for marriage that includes everybody,” said Raskin. “Those people don’t say, ‘Will you gay marry me?’ or ‘Will you same-sex marry me?’ They’re asking, ‘Will you marry me?”

As debate came to a close, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr., who had promised and managed to deliver a civil discussion, suggested his colleagues were beginning to carry the amendment proposals too far.

The senate is scheduled to hold a third and final reading of the marriage equality bill on Thursday. Supporters have secured the required number of votes from 24 senators, and Gov. Martin O’Malley has pledged to sign the bill. Debate begins Friday in the house of delegates, where backers feel confident of passage.

If passed and signed into law, the bill would make Maryland, with a population of 5.7 million people, the sixth state, in addition to the District of Columbia, to allow marriage equality.

Opponents of marriage equality have said they will try to repeal the prospective law with a referendum in 2012. However, a similar attempt to challenge the addition of sexual orientation to the state’s human rights law was kept off the ballot in the previous decade.

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Md. Senate - largest remaining hurdle to same-sex marriage - likely to approve bill

By John Wagner, Washington Post Staff Writer

A majority of Maryland's state senators have said publicly that they will vote to legalize same-sex marriages, greatly increasing the odds that the highest-profile social legislation being considered by the General Assembly will pass in coming weeks. read more here...

Md. OK's Two Moms on Birth Certificates

If a woman in a same-sex marriage gives birth to a child in Maryland, her spouse will now automatically be listed as a parent on the birth certificate.

By Advocate.com Editors

The state of Maryland will now allow a woman to be named as a parent on the birth certificate of a child born to her same-sex spouse without the court order previously required, Lambda Legal reports.

The Maryland Division of Health and Mental Hygiene sent a letter to state birth registrars last Thursday ordering them to make the change. The letter said the impetus for the change was an opinion issued by Atty. Gen. Douglas Gansler last year that the state would likely soon recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. The state legislature is also debating a bill that would allow gay couples to marry in Maryland.  read more here...

NOM testimony against Maryland marriage equality has unintended effect

By Eric Ethington

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland’s Senate Judicial Proceedings committee heard 7 hours of testimony on Tuesday on whether or not to legalize same-sex marriage, and testimony from at least one marriage equality opponent has had an unintended consequence.

Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore), one of the few Senate Democrats who opposed same-sex marriage, is reconsidering changing his position after listening to testimony from Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization For Marriage (NOM)

The Baltimore Sun reports:

Baltimore County Sen. James Brochin found the testimony Tuesday by opponents of gay marriage “troubling,” and said this morning that he may support the bill. The Baltimore County Democrat had previously said he was against same-sex marriage.

“The demonization of gay families really bothered me,” Brochin said. “Are these families going to continue to be treated by the law as second class citizens?”

On Tuesday, Gallagher testified before the Committee that 99% of the population is heterosexual, instead of the more accurate (and conservative) estimate of 90%, and that “more than 99% of the people who create children” do so “through acts of sexual passion.”

Watch here, courtesy of Metro Weekly:



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Nightly Wrap Up With New Mexico GLBTQ Centers

Styled Out: Ellen as a fashion icon.

Webb to Leave Senate. (Comments by one subscriber: "He knew he wasn't going to run, or else he would have voted his agenda. Glad that he voted his conscious instead. I think there may be a few others that follow."  One Can Hope)

Support Grows in Ky. for Equality.  Such surprising GOOD news!

Watch: Thomas Roberts Tells Maryland Lt. Governor Anthony Brown He'd Like to Marry There (VIDEO)

Dr. Phil: No Girls’ Toys for Boys.  How irresponsible.

Antigay Rep. Chris Lee Resigns.  What a jerk!

Clinic Exposes 53 to HIV, Hepatitis.  I am shocked.  Just terrible.

Pol Compares Gays to Drug Dealers.

Adam Sandler Talks Trans Housekeeper (VIDEO)

N.H. Wants to Keep Marriage Equality.

Preacher: Reinstate DADT for $159.

Joan Rivers for N.Y. Marriage Equality (VIDEO)

Hair Apparent.

Matthew Mitcham Has Something to Say (VIDEO)

Hundreds Attend Md. Marriage Hearing.

Activist Frank Kameny: ‘helping our brothers and sisters’ for 40 years.  Now it's our turn to help.

Md. Senate to Hold Marriage Hearing

By Julie Bolcer

The Maryland senate judicial proceedings committee will hold a hearing on the marriage equality bill early Tuesday afternoon.

Advocates including statewide LGBT group Equality Maryland plan to speak out for the bill in advance of the hearing, which begins at 1 p.m. The hearing can be heard live here.

According to the Associated Press, “Supporters are likely to face their greatest hurdle in the Senate, where they would need 29 of the chamber’s 47 lawmakers to break a filibuster and 24 votes to advance the measure to the House.”

Currently, 20 senators, including Republican Allan Kittleman, who broke ranks with his party, support the measure. The bill was introduced with 18 cosponsors including senate majority leader Rob Garagiola, a first-time backer of the measure. Last week, Republicans decided as a caucus to oppose the bill.

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Marriage, trans bills get boost in Md. House

by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The same-sex marriage and transgender non-discrimination bills pending in the Maryland legislature cleared another hurdle last week when the speaker of the House of Delegates appointed a majority of supporters of the two bills to the committees that must first approve them.

House Speaker Michael Busch (D-Anne Arundel County) had been expected to retain a majority on the House Judiciary Committee in favor of the marriage equality bill as he has in past years, and did so again on Dec. 29.

But officials with Equality Maryland, the statewide LGBT advocacy organization, were less certain about the makeup of the House Committee on Health and Government Operations. That panel has jurisdiction over a pending bill that would ban employment discrimination based on gender identity and expression, which would protect transgender people. In past years, the panel has not taken a vote on the transgender bill.

Equality Maryland Executive Director Morgan Meneses-Sheets said the group was delighted with Busch’s decision on Dec. 29 to also name at least 13 supporters of the transgender measure to the 23-member Health and Government Operations Committee. The action ensures that the bill will be reported out of committee for an up or down vote in the House of Delegates.

In early December, a majority of pro-marriage equality members were named to the Maryland Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee, ensuring for the first time that a same-sex marriage measure would clear that key panel and reach the Senate floor for a vote. Up until now, the Judicial Proceedings Committee has blocked the marriage bill from coming to a floor vote.

“We want to move the marriage bill first in the Senate and the gender identity bill first in the House,” Meneses-Sheets said in discussing the timetable planned for the bills among a coalition of supporters.

She said further refinement of the timetable for moving both measures was to be discussed Wednesday in a conference call between Equality Maryland officials and all seven members of the legislature’s gay and lesbian caucus.

Similar to past years, Meneses-Sheets and others advocating for the two bills believe there appear to be enough votes to pass the marriage bill in the House. Supporters in the Senate believe they have the 24 votes needed to pass the marriage bill on an up or down vote but were less certain over whether they have the 29 votes needed to stop an expected filibuster by same-sex marriage opponents.

“The question is whether we can get cloture to break a filibuster,” said Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery County), who supports both the marriage equality and transgender non-discrimination bills.

“That’s the mystery at this point,” he said.

Raskin said he was not familiar enough with the positions of his colleagues on the transgender bill to predict its outcome other than to say he sees support growing for that measure.

Sen. Richard Madaleno (D-Montgomery County), who is gay, said on Wednesday he’s more confident in the prospects for the marriage bill.

“I have never been so optimistic about getting this done,” he said. “Today at lunch I sat quietly by myself with a list of the members of the new Senate going over again and again in my head where the votes are, and I’m feeling really good right now both for the floor vote and the cloture vote.”

Madaleno is among seven out gays and lesbians now serving in the Maryland legislature — one in the Senate and six in the House — who said they will push hard from the inside to pass both the marriage and transgender rights bill.

Meneses-Sheets said Equality Maryland has scheduled a lobby day for Feb. 14 on Valentine’s Day, where the group hopes large numbers of LGBT Marylanders and their straight supporters will come to the state capital in Annapolis to push for both bills.

She said the group is inviting LGBT people to bring family members with them to the all-day lobbying event, with the intention that they visit the offices of members of the Senate and House of Delegates from all parts of the state.

“We’re so close that it will take just a handful of votes to push this through,” she said of the marriage bill. “The electorate is with us on this. The young voters are with us on this issue.”

Concerning the transgender bill, she said its prospects “look good on the floor of the House” but “there may be challenges” in the Senate.

Among the challenges, she noted, are arguments by opponents that a transgender non-discrimination measure would enable men dressed as women to harass women in women’s bathrooms in public places.

Transgender activists have disputed the so-called “bathroom” argument, which usually surfaces when transgender non-discrimination legislation is introduced.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, has said no reports of women being targeted in bathrooms have surfaced in any of the states, cities or counties where transgender non-discrimination laws have been adopted.

“It’s a myth,” she said.

“We need to persuade people that you should be judged on the merits when it comes to your job,” said Meneses-Sheets. “It’s an economic issue.”

She said Equality Maryland is bringing on three more full-time staff members to work on the two bills beginning Jan. 12, when the Maryland General Assembly opens its 2011 session.

The session lasts for just 90 days, a development that LGBT activists say gives them only until April 11 to secure the passage of the marriage and transgender rights measures.

“We have a lot of work to do in a short time,” said Meneses-Sheets.

Madaleno said that under the longstanding practice in the General Assembly, nearly all important or controversial bills don’t come to a final vote until the last two or three weeks of the session in April.

A late passage of both the marriage and transgender rights bill would make it more difficult for opponents to collect the required signatures for a referendum to kill the bills. Nearly all observers of the General Assembly expect opponents to take out petitions to call a referendum, which would stop the bills from taking effect until after voters decide on the issue — assuming the required number of petitions is obtained.

Under the state constitution, one-third of the required number of petition signatures must be obtained by the end of May and the remainder of the signatures needed must be collected by the end of June. The gathering of petitions cannot begin until both houses of the General Assembly passes a bill being challenged. That means it would be to the advantage of supporters of the two bills to wait until the end of the session to pass them.

The number of signatures needed is three percent of the qualified voters in the state based on the total number of votes cast in the most recent election for governor.

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