http://www.wgmd.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=26107

Granted that marriage is going to be a tough sell, but it appears that a majority of the USA support civil unions, granted an imperfect solution, but in spite of the hatred and religious mental illness of the christian/Catholic/Morman Taliban.

Everyone needs to be active. Join your state equality groups. Get together and picket the worst of the churches. Financially support go politicians, almost all but not necessarily Dems (eg think of how Irish Catholic Gov. Lynch of NH signed the gay marriage bill. And his demanding and getting specific exemption for religious groups re marriage (not other things is fine), because it only helps prevent nuisance lawsuits against religious groups, many of which are well on their way to supporting gay people anyway, it is just that religion takes time to change.

And lets be careful about castigate Pres. Obama. He is doing a lot, including appointing 60 gay people to high level jobs, including 9 requiring senate confirmation. It is all about paving the way.

Yes I agree we need to hold Pr. Obama’s feet to the fire. But the total disaster would be to get another bible thumper president like the Criminal Bush. Most of the progressive supreme court judges are old, while most of the conservative judges are younger.

Let the bible thumpers fill the supreme court with RAZI NAZI type conservatives, and it is all over for America. We become a new Holy Roman Empire. Anything but Holy, murderous re eg the Iraq war based on lies, and of course govt sanctioned hatred of minorities.

It happened in Nazi germany, and it could happen here. Only here it would be worse. While hitler used the catholic churches hatred of Jesus own people, the Jews, to get control, Here you would have the Neo-Nazis combined with the religious monstrosities. Bye Bye America, and prob Bye Bye world.

the only winner would be the Bin Laden type mainiacs – those who want a final confrontation between Christianity and Islam, in a nuclear armed world.

the monster is amongst us – not all the republicans, but a majority of them who would destroy America as long as they gained total control.

All in the name Of God no less.

It is very silly that 8 states only include sexual orientation and do not include transgender individuals (others include both)!!!!

At least 14 of the states that do provide anti-discrimination statutes includes BOTH sexual orientation and gender idenity (California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Colorado, New Mexico, DC, Vermont, Washington, Oregon, Minessota, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Illinois, etc).

The definition of sex, gender and/or sexual orientation in these 8 states should include transexuals:

Nevada
New Hampshire
New York
Massacusetts
Connecticut
Maryland
Wisconson
Dalaware (getting signed into law soon with Sexual orientation only)

I live in Maryland. My state Maryland passed a law saying that you may not discriminate against gay Marylanders in housing, employment, and public accommodations. This is not trans inclusive on the state level for MD as you already said.
HOWEVER, on the county level….
Montgomery County, MD where I have lived since 1966, has a non-discrimination law that specifically covers trans people. It was the source of much fear-mongering and much spreading of misinformation by a radical anti-trans citizen’s group in our county. They tried to get our county’s pro-trans law overturned but failed. This MD county’s trans law is still in place as I write this.

Montgomery County (which borders on Northwest DC) is a good place to live, a relatively progressive and prosperous MD county to live in for GLBTs, where there are local county laws that protect GLBT rights. Gay people employed through the Montgomery County government can get if I remember right health benefits etc for their domestic partners. We don’t have equal marriage laws here, but we have some MD domestic partner benefits gained during O’Malley’s current term as MD governor that we did not have under his antigay predecessor Ehrlich.

O’Malley is pro-MD civil unions, not pro-MD marriage equality.

http://www.hrc.org/documents/Employment_Laws_and_Policies.pdf