The Maryland House of Delegates passed marriage equality legislation tonight by a vote of 71-67.
The state Senate passed a similar bill last year but it died in the House. Now that the House has reversed on it, the Senate and Governor Martin O’Malley are poised to sign the bill into law.
Crucial to the bill’s passage was convincing Republican lawmakers to cross the aisle on this one, and even good ol’ Ken Mehlman put in a couple of calls.
Mehlman tells the Baltimore Sun that he phoned several GOP politicians and told them gay marriage is consistent with Republican beliefs: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
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Big Gay also heralded the victory. HRC’s Joe Solmonese said in a statement:
What makes this win so sweet is that it comes on the heels of three huge victories in the past two weeks: a court decision that ruled Prop. 8 unconstitutional, as well as major progress for marriage equality in Washington and New Jersey.
Seriously, people—are we on a roll or what? At this rate we’ll overrule Chris Christie‘s veto no problem!
Photo: ILGA
tj
Oh please Ken Mehlman… STFU.
Marie Cohn
Curb your joy: it will now be subject to popular vote as a ballot item in Nov. Fat Maggie and the Gang will be squatting in MD for the next 8 months.
B
No. 1 · tj wrote, “Oh please Ken Mehlman… STFU.”
Let’s hope he doesn’t “STFU” and instead robocalls every NJ Republican in his rolodex that could vote to override Christie’s veto, plus anyone else where a vote is coming up. It’s not like he is going to call you!
You may not like Mehlman, but in a war, if some guy is shooting at the enemy, you don’t shoot at him, even if there is a good reason to (like, he’s on the other side), until he stops shooting at the enemy. Similarly, if the opposition is forming the proverbial circular firing squad, don’t distract them.
Cam
The House is where it died last time, and now they just passed it. Well Done!!
The state has a provision that allows recently passed laws to come up for a vote of the populace if they can get enough petition signatures so this could come up for a referendum.
There is a huge outreach going on to the religions communities and African American communities in MD. because white support is clocked at around 71% and AA support is much lower, in the 40’s. (Before anybody comes on screaming, those are the actual numbers, so please do not shoot the messenger).
So if you live in MD, or around MD. contact one of the groups like Equality Maryland, or…wiiigh, HRC, and see if there is any outreach you can help with!
This is a recent article in the NYTimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/us/maryland-gay-marriage-faces-black-skepticism.html
And before anybody starts bitching about the black community just remember, Washington DC a majority black city passed marriage.
Sebizzar
Yayyy let’s keep this going please! It still bugs me that my state Cali is still stuck, but we’re almost there >_<
dsp
Can we stop calling it “gay marriage”? We don’t say straight or heterosexual marriage, do we? It’s marriage equality! Marriage is marriage. What we wan’t is equal rights in marriage, not equal rights in gay marriage! That is one of the reasons (calling it gay marriage) it is so difficult to get. People can challenge gay marriage but it is much more difficult to challenge marriage equality. Don’t ya think?