The Washington Post has a summary of the fight. In short, uphill battle. This would have been a lot easier if that 4-3 vote had gone the other way, but c'est la vie.
Maryland's House has three openly gay members and the Montgomery County delegation "would be supportive of gay marriage" according to House Majority leader Kumar P. Barve. Go MC!
The problem is on the Senate side where the Senate President is not supportive.
"People can introduce any bill they'd like," Miller (D-Calvert) said. "But at this juncture, I don't believe the votes are there to change the law. . . . The burden will be on the people who feel it's needed to explain the need for a change."
That's a burden we can meet. Governor O'Malley appears to be supportive but won't be spending any political capital on the issue. In fairness, he's out there stumping for a tax hike to deal with our budget problems, so he doesn't have lots to spare at the moment. However, he hasn't indicated that he'll be more supportive in the future. Ratcheting up the pressure on him once this current problem is past might be a productive venue.
In the past, Maryland has passed a "domestic partner registry" bill that would "giving them rights to property ownership, inheritance, health care, insurance coverage, hospital visitation, child custody and pension benefits." The bill was vetoed by our previous Republican governor.
On the one hand, that's symbolically weak tea. On the other, it would substantially improve the rights of committed homosexual couples. Passing such a bill into law would relieve pressure to get better rights but there is a ratchet effect here. Gay marriage has a terrific demonstration effect and even a domestic partner registry could substantially raise the visibility of this issue. I'm not going to try to judge how much compromise is acceptable at this moment, that should really be left to those who will directly benefit from the changes. Regardless, I think we should start ambitiously.
I'll work on getting more information this weekend and will try to get some details from my members of Congress.
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