[Update: Marriage Equality won't pass this year.]
March 11, 2011
The debate is on now. Maryland has a website with live proceedings (apparently you need real player for that). Maryland politics watch is live blogging the debate. [Wagner reported last night that the House was still a few votes shy of the 71 needed of passage.]
Theoretically they could end up working out a different compromise, but obviously this would be a huge blow to the momentum. If you want to call or email, here's the info. Here's a set of links to the Maryland Politics watch page on how people voted on amendments. At this point, any messages should probably have the dual purpose of encouraging voting on the final bill and not giving up if this one doesn't make it through. Setbacks can become defeats to easily.
[Update: The bill has been remanded to committee. I'll close off with an excerpt from Del. Heather Mizeur's speech as transcribed over at Maryland Politics Watch:
"425 rights and protections come with a marriage license." Discussing medical decisions in a hospital, riding in an ambulance and other very personal matters. That's all we're asking is to protect our relationships and our commitment."
"Even if this bill doesn't pass, my wife and I will still be married whether [or not] you choose to protect us from tragedy."
"You can't stop us from loving each other. You can't stop us from pledging our love in from of God and each other. All you can do is make it worse for us in challenging times when life throws you curve balls."
"What we're asking for is equal protection under the law."
"Choose love."]
John Wagner calls it for the year:
The Maryland House of Delegates has voted to effectively kill for this year a bill that would have allowed same-sex marriage in the state.
[Update: Trimmed gratuitous number of updates.]