Maryland becomes eighth state to legalize gay marriage (Another domino falls)

Hotair ^ | 02/24/2012 | AllahPundit

[SeekAndFind]

It passed the House last week and the Senate tonight, and the governor’s signature is a fait accompli:

The final vote by the state Senate ended a yearlong drama in Annapolis over the legislation, and marked the first time an East Coast state south of the Mason-Dixon line has supported gay nuptials…

Despite one of the largest Democratic majorities in any state legislature, backers of gay marriage in Maryland had to overcome fierce opposition from blocks of African American lawmakers and those with strong Catholic and evangelical views to cobble together coalitions big enough to pass both chambers.

The bill didn’t become viable until two more Democrats were elected to the Senate in 2010, which finally gave them the votes to move the bill out of committee. Next up: The inevitable popular referendum to see whether the law should be blocked. According to Ballotpedia, polls taken in early 2011 and 2012 show roughly 50 percent support for gay marriage in the state versus opposition in the low 40s. Much will depend on turnout, but the true significance of the referendum is that potentially it applies a bit more pressure to the Supreme Court to take this issue up constitutionally. That’s probably a done deal anyway thanks to the Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling on Prop 8, but if Maryland’s gay-marriage opponents win the referendum and gay rights activists sue to have it thrown out, that’ll be two cases in two different states in two different regions involving a question of majority rule pitted directly against minority rights. Hard for the Court to resist.

Via Mediaite, here’s Chris Christie squaring off with WaPo’s Jonathan Capehart this a.m. on “Morning Joe” over his veto of New Jersey’s gay marriage bill. They’re actually both wrong here, I think. First Capehart accuses Christie of letting a popular referendum determine the civil rights of a minority, but that’s not actually true. As I understand it, any potential referendum in New Jersey would seek to overturn Christie’s veto by asking simply whether gay marriage should now be legalized. That’s different from a referendum asking whether gay marriage should be banned. The former, if it fails, adds nothing to the state constitution, merely affirming Christie’s veto and the status quo unless and until there’s a legislative majority willing to change it. Whereas the latter, if it passed, would lock in a constitutional prohibition barring future legislative efforts until a popular majority overturned it. Christie’s wrong too, though, in claiming that Obama’s trying to have it both ways on gay marriage while he’s standing on principle by resolving to veto the gay-marriage bill when it gets to his desk. Christie’s trying to have it both ways too by consistently talking up the referendum as a way around him. He knows full well that it’s likely to pass if it happens — according to a poll taken a few weeks ago, the public supports gay marriage 54/35 — but he wants to keep his ducks in a row on social issues in case he ends up on the national GOP ticket someday. By supporting a referendum so effusively, he’s basically encouraging New Jerseyites to legalize gay marriage for him so that he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty doing so. Which, of course, makes the scolding from Capehart and others ironic. Christie’s not booting the issue to the public because he wants the majority to crush the minority’s rights, he’s booting it because he expects the majority will affirm the minority’s rights and thereby nullify his politically expedient veto.

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

[silverleaf]

we don’t need no steenkin’ ballots

stroke of the pen, law of the land

I can’t wait to see Marty O Mally as best man at the first gay “wedding”, with his wife judge Katie doing the officiating

[squarebarb]

Now begins the outlawing of faith-based adoption agencies,

homosexual sex added to school health cirriculums,

lawsuits against churches that won’t perform gay marriages,
insisting that all businesses adopt hate-crime legislation re: homosexuals,

sensitivity training re: homosexuality in all private businesses and state agencies, which means all sorts of little sensitivity-training groups popping up to get their paws in taxpayers pockets.....

etc etc etc

[newnhdad]

They passed this by something like a combined five votes so after they lose the referendum, they will try to nullify the will of the people.

[crusty old prospector]

Add Maryland to the list of states that I won’t visit.

[fwdude]

Good, now the citizens can have their voices heard in a referendum which will repudiate these scum sucking legislators.

And the anarchist lawmakers and sodomite governor have made their abomination known. Let November sort them out.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Maryland also has very lax laws on marriage for out-of-staters. It has been a prime destination for elopement for many decades. You can get a license with minimal fuss and no waiting period.

Not a shock then that they have passed this. Gay activists are looking for just such a “gateway”.

[ml/nj]

How exactly did governments in general and our governments (Federal and State) specifically get involved in the institution of marriage, which seems to me to be a religious institution? (Governments don't do Bar Mitzvahs, yet.)

ML/NJ

[matginzac]

Another “catholic” going against Church doctrine in a public way...get RID of him.
Another reason to live in VA, not MD...

[Dilbert San Diego]

What does Justice Anthony Kennedy think of homosexual marriage? He could be the swing vote in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision.

All of this activity at the state level, both in court and in legislatures, is just setting the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule at some point. The gay activists are not going to be happy just to have legal homosexual marriage in a handful of liberal states.

While 8 states now have legal homosexal marriage, on the other hand 31 states have written the traditional definition of marriage into their constitutions. Two more states, North Carolina and Minnesota, vote this year on that subject.

If Barack Obama wins the 2012 election, and gets to appoint more liberals to the Supreme Court, if any conservatives retire, we will see 50 state homosexual marriage via U.S. Supreme Court order in the next few years.

[massmike]

I see you’ve been to Massachusetts....

What same-sex “marriage” has done to Massachusetts
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/marriage/effects_of_ssm.html

Elementary school teaching cross-dressing and transgenderism in the 3rd grade!!
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/articles/franklin_trans_1106.html

The “Little Black Book” - Hard-core pornographic homosexual “how-to” booklet given to kids at high school!
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/issues/black_book/black_book_inside.html

It’s 1984 in Massachusetts –
And Big Brother Is Gay
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/society/1984_in_mass.htm

Queering the Schools
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_2_queering_the_schools.html

Children’s book portraying homosexual romance and marriage — read to second-grade class by teacher
http://www.massresistance.com/docs/issues/king_and_king/book.html

Boston Globe celebrates homosexual school clubs persuading kids to “come out” as teenagers (and earlier).
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/07d/globe_mag_111107/index.html

Brutal fascist tactics against citizens
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/info/kbase/facist_tactics.html

Seven teachers at Concord-Carlisle High School hold assembly telling students how they “came out” as homosexuals — encouraging students to do the same
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/10d/coming_out_assembly/index.html

Homosexual flier given to kids through Mass. GLBT Youth Commission
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/10c/youth_pride/bagly_flier/index.html

BAGLY - part of tax-funded Mass GLBT Commission - luring kids to “gay youth film festival”
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/10b/bagly_film_festival/index.html

Graphic homosexual handouts and paraphernalia given to kids at the Fistgate conference run by “Safe Schools” czar Kevin Jennings
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/issues/fistgate/handouts/index.html

Concord-Carlisle High School presenting depraved homosexual musical
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/09d/falsettos_play/index.html

Massachusetts man fired from corporation over Christian belief in traditional marriage
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/09d/vadala/index.html

October is ‘Gay History Month’ - being pushed in schools. Radical “history” includes founders of modern porn movement.
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/09d/glbt_history_month/index.html

PARADE through Boston: kids acting out homosexuality in public AND “Transgender PROM” for kids in Boston City Hall
http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen/09b/youth_pride/index.html

[Dilbert San Diego]

You make some good points.

Liberals frequently say that “gay marriage” doesn’t affect your own marriage, how does it affect your marriage if the lesbians next door have a marriage license, etc.

And you point out that changing the definition of marriage changes the way the entire society looks at marriage and family laws. It goes far beyond the neighbor lesbians having a marriage license and doing whatever it is they do in the privacy of their relationship.

I’ve heard that gay adoption is a big issue in the gay community, and that many states still have restrictive laws in that area. Look for more gay adoption lawsuits, if these “gay” married couples are not treated “equally” under our family law in that area.

[Linda Frances]

I don't think the state “falls” until the majority of people vote it in. When this is done outside the will of the voter it is dictatorship of a state by some legislators and/or judges who don't have the right to make laws.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: What does Justice Anthony Kennedy think of homosexual marriage? He could be the swing vote in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision.

_______________________________

The number of justices who will decide one way and the other in this current Supreme Court is as predictable as day follows night. The EFFECTIVE decider is Anthony Kennedy, be it Obamacare or Gay Marriage.

As for what he thinks, your guess is as good as mine.

All I can say is in many important cases affecting our freedoms and societal norms, this country is PRACTICALLY dependent on the decision of ONE MAN today.

So, for those of you FReepers who plan to sit out this election because your favorite candidate is not the nominee or you dislike the eventual nominee, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE SURRENDERING, THINK ABOUT WHAT AMERICA WILL BE LIKE WHEN OBAMA GETS A SECOND TERM AND (God forbid ), Scalia ( who is already of retirement age ), or any of the other conservative justices die or have to retire.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Why is this arrangement called “gay marriage”?

I’ve had a “gay marriage”, in that, the wife and I have been carefree and happy and enjoyed our marriage.

Anyone else notice that the word “gay” now only means “homosexual”, that the dictionary definition of gay is no longer correct?

I attended a school Christmas concert, in which they changed the lyrics of “Deck the Halls”, so that the kids wouldn’t have to sing the line about “gay apparel”. I’m sure that’s why they omitted that line in the song.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: how does it affect your marriage if the lesbians next door have a marriage license, etc.

__________________________________

Well IT WILL AFFECT the way I conduct my business, or the way religious institutions I do business with conduct theirs.

If a President like Obama can FORCE Catholic institutions at their own expense, to provide abortificent products to their
employees IN VIOLATION of their moral doctrine, what’s to prevent any Obama-like democrat from FORCING Christian institutions to provide benefits to gay partners (thus, forcing them to recognize a “marriage” their religion tells them is sinful and against God’s laws )?

First they came for the Catholics.... then, they legalize gay marriage, who’s next after Catholics?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I’ve had a “gay marriage”, in that, the wife and I have been carefree and happy and enjoyed our marriage.

______________________

The word “gay” used to mean happy ( as in the “Gay Divorcee” or “Don we now our gay apparel”).

But it has now taken on another meaning.

MORAL: WORDS and the way they are used, can be HIJACKED to make it mean something else. Orwell warned us about it.

[Dilbert San Diego]

And this is exactly what happened with the word “gay”.

The word “gay” does not have a double meaning. It has only one meaning now.

[wardaddy]

yet not one of these states allowed a popular referendum

[SeekAndFind]

RE: The word “gay” does not have a double meaning. It has only one meaning now.

You mean we can’t sing the song — DECK THE HALLS on Christmas without thinking about queers (there’a another changed word ) in pink? :)