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Loading ...Maryland lawmakers take up gay marriage bill
03.11.2009 11:34am EDT
(Annapolis, Maryland) Today marks the beginning of two days of hearings on a bill that would allow gay couples to marry in Maryland.
Outside the Capitol, hundreds of supporters demonstrated, calling on lawmakers to approve the measure.Called the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, the bill would allow civil marriages for gay couples while permitting churches opposed to same-sex marriage to refuse to perform weddings.
The bill is sponsored by openly gay Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr.. Madaleno and his partner have adopted two children.
In 2007, the state’s highest court upheld the law barring same-sex unions.
In a split ruling ,the majority opinion said that while the court agrees that marriage is a fundamental right, there is no fundamental right to marry someone of the same sex. The court ruled that defining marriage should be up to the legislature.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has proposed giving health, dental and prescription drug benefits to state employees’ domestic partners and their dependents in his Fiscal Year 2010 budget.
Last year, O’Malley signed two bills that benefit same-sex couples in the state.
The first gives domestic partners – gay or straight – medical and funeral decision-making rights. The second exempts domestic partners from paying property transfer taxes when one person dies.
But O’Malley has said he is opposed to same-sex marriage.
Republicans also oppose the marriage bill. Several GOP delegates have said they will attempt to bring in a proposal to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
If it weren’t for the legal benefits it provides, I would tell anti-gay people trying to keep marriage for themselves to shove it up their collective asses.
my partner and i were at the baltimore gay pride festival some years back and omally was there hunting for support and votes–now where is he?? what is his problem !?
Hey Rick N Nick, you’re still better off in MD than in the pathetic, loser state where we live just to your south.
This article is incorrect. Governor O’Malley has stated that he would sign a marriage equality bill. He has said it more than once.
Rick N Nick,
It has been no secret for a few years in my state Maryland that O’Malley supports civil unions and not marriage equality.
That is not news to gay Marylanders.
O’Malley has made that clear at least 5 or so times when it’s come up before the statehouse or if his preference is asked.
He is “no knight in shining armor” but he is far, far better than his truly awful antigay GOP predecessor Ehrlich was.
I am hoping that the next MD governor will be an improvement over O’Malley.
I live in Baltimore City and I hope this goes threw. My Partner and I have been wateing since 97′ to get married.
if you can marry your first cusin in 25 of the united states,gay people should be allowed to marry as well.
I hope that it passes , me and my partner have bin together for 25yrs,he is 61 and me 46, I feel time is runing out . I have never bin so afraid, looking forward to retirement.xxxooo
Joshua,
Turns out flipflopping MD gov was lying to score political brownie points with with Lisa Polyak when she asked him by e-mail if he supported gay marriage as she has a daughter who wants to see her 2 moms Lisa and Gita married.
Lt Governor Brown lied to Polyak’s daughter when she and her classmates visited with him saying that he supported marriage equality when he really didn’t. After the girl came home to her mother, Polyak e-mailed Brown to thank him, but he wrote back to say he didn’t really mean that, he said that “just so that Polyak’s daughter would look good or would’nt look bad (or something to that effect) in front of her classmates”. I read those things in a release from Equality Maryland our state’s GLBT rights organization.
“Liar, liar, you’re pants are on fire!” You and your Lt Gov should always tell the truth that you don’t support same-sex marriage and that you support civil unions. What the heck is so hard about that! We need to know where you stand and you gov and lt gov must be consistent and cannot change your philosophy from group to group or else NO ONE WILL BELIEVE YOU! for you will be found out and no one can be sure that you really mean anything you say on any topic! O’Malley and Brown YOUR CREDIBILITY IS NOW “TOAST!”
At least antigay gov Ehrlich did not change his tune, he was always antigay marriage equality, you could depend on that however bad, you knew where you stood with Ehrlich on that issue.
While gov, Robert Ehrlich did make an exception here or there if it was public safety related, he was against bullying in schools for example, so he was not a complete monster. But if he felt it was something that could “encroach on the “sanctity of marriage” he would defy all common sense and veto it as was his priviledge as our gov at the time. But I have more respect for someone who “stays the course” and stays true to his beliefs however stupid than I do for a supposed ally who tells a lie to his fellow MD citizen Lisa Polyak (Polyak and her spouse Gita Deane and about 9 other same-sex couples plaintiffs in the MD court case to win marriage equality in Maryland)and to her daughter. He was lying for political gain, which will “bite him in the rear” once that is more well known. If there is a better future candidate running against O’Malley in the future, I will vote against O’Malley for sure.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business. We have other problems to worry about, like child molestors, why people are losing their homes and jobs, the homeless people in america, the starving people right down the street and your worried about who someone decides to be with. People need to think about whats important. Just because someone doesn’t agree with the whole gays marrying thing fine so what, but that wont stop them from being in exsitance. I am not gay but, I have a lot of gay friends and they are better then some of the straight people that I have come across. Just let them get married and mind yor business.
Once the neo-cons realize that they are slwoly losing that self-titled “culture wars” because GLBT issues no longer resonate with enough voters – they will have effectively become an permanent minority party. Payback is a bitch, huh?
I don’t see any reason why same-sex couples shouldn’t be able to join together in a way that’s approved in the court. The Bible says that “marriage” is between man and woman. Alright, so don’t call it marriage. Call it civil union, joined union, whatever you’d like. But I still don’t see why someone who is gay or lesbian shouldn’t be able to proudly say that they’re married, just the same as anyone else.
The time IS ripe the time IS now. We only want what your already have. Just put your pen to the paper and bail us out of our pain, it won’t cost you a thing.