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Posted on 03/01/2012 3:29:15 PM PST by NYer
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, March 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The governor of Maryland has signed a new law extending the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples one day after opponents were given the green light to collect signatures for an initiative to put the marriage question to state voters.
The bill was approved in a 25-22 Senate vote after only 48 hours of deliberation on Feb. 23, six days after it passed the House of Delegates. Gov. Martin O’Malley’s signature makes Maryland the seventh state to redefine marriage, in addition to the District of Columbia.
Meanwhile, traditional marriage supporters have already made headway bringing the issue to voters: Mary Cramer Wagner, director of the board’s Voter Registration Division, told the Baltimore Sun on Wednesday that petition drafts filed by the Maryland Marriage Alliance and a Maryland delegate have been deemed compliant with state petition regulations.
Traditional marriage supporters said they would wait until official clearance from the board to begin collecting signatures, of which they need nearly 56,000 before the referendum can be cleared for the ballot.
Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.
Derek McCoy, director for the Maryland Marriage Alliance, said the Senate vote crammed the bill through on a tight schedule, and “rushed through multiple potential amendments to the bill, and disregarded the voices of thousand of voting citizens weighing in to express their disapproval of redefining marriage.” But, he said, the battle is “not over.”
“Despite the impetuous decision made by the Senate, the people of Maryland will have the last say,” said McCoy in a press release this week.
McCoy told the Sun that he couldn’t offer an estimate on the amount of funding the group planned to spend on pushing the initiative, while local gay rights supporters told the same paper they were preparing to spend more than half a million dollars.
Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, Baltimore’s apostolic administrator, said that the bill’s success, while not surprising, “places Maryland one step closer to the dismantling of the most fundamental social institution in all of society.”
“Now, Maryland’s politicians unconscionably have chosen political expediency over the good of society - the fundamental charge of their office - by daring to redefine this sacred union between one man and one woman,” said O’Brien following the Senate vote. “Their action poses a grave threat to the future stability of the nuclear family and the society it anchors.”
In a recent interview with the Christian Post, local pro-family leader Bishop Harry Jackson emphasized that changing the definition of marriage in Maryland will reverberate and will inevitably reach schools and children.
“The reality is, if you change the definition of marriage, you change the definition of the family, then you change what is taught in schools – that it’s okay for Heather to have two mommies – and exploring your ‘sexual awareness’ as a young child is acceptable; and it’s not,” he said. Jackson pointed to public school programs in Washington, D.C. that already encourage “young children” to explore homosexuality and transgenderism.
The religious leader was optimistic about the ballot initiative, noting that traditional marriage supporters are “31 for 31 on gay marriage when it’s been put before the voters of different states.”
I hope the referendum returns the institution of normal marriage to its rightful status. But it’ll be tough to get a majority. Maryland is filled with liberal bureaucrats.
ping!
America will soon suffer the curse of Sodom & Gomorrah
“In a recent interview with the Christian Post, local pro-family leader Bishop Harry Jackson emphasized that changing the definition of marriage in Maryland will reverberate and will inevitably reach schools and children.”
I wonder how most black Marylanders like this development?
Let me sign the petition. The People need to vote on this.
Time to change its name to ‘Analand’. There will be no such perversions in eternal heaven nor those who promote it.
Amen.
LLS
DOH!
They hate it - especially in Prince Georges County, which is overwhelmingly black and fundamentalist Christian. *
They need 56K signatures to place on the referendum - there i one "mega church" in PG County alone that has 10K parishoners. They will have enuf signatures in no time.
* Baltimore City/County too. Eastern Shore and Western Maryland also fundamentalist - but white. They will line up to sign also.
Let me sign the petition. The People need to vote on this.
*****
www.MDpetitions.org
You have to be a registered voter to sign-up [they check], but I think that they DO accept donations for the campaign.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
And dead voters.
I prefer Sissy-MaryLand.
I'm not at all concerned about them collecting sufficient signatures, but that a leftist court will simply invalidate anything that is decided by a vote of the people.
That, and the fact that a firmly DemocRat state like Analand is likely rife with voter fraud.
This year is truly the make-or-break year for marriage. On the ballots in several states will appear issues on marriage:
North Carolina - Marriage amendment (May)
Minnesota - Marriage amendment
Maine - Voter initiative to counterfeit marriage
Washington - Voter initiative to void the legislature's law counterfeiting marriage
Maryland - ditto
And then there are the court cases.
Prop 8 appeal in full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Prop 8 appeal in possibly the U.S. Supreme Court
Various federal appeals in cases attacking DOMA, and more likely on the way.
Several state court cases (Texas same-sex "divorce" case going to state Sup. Ct.)
And all this in the context of a major general election, where the nation will be faced with the choice of sodomy or sanity in the Congress and White House.
Two things.
First, I live in MD, Referendum is in the MD Constitution - and has been so since about 1914. It can be accomplished in one of two ways:
1. Legislative Referendum: The legislature passes a law [which the Guv signs]. It contains SPECIFIC language that leaves FINAL approval/disapproval up to the voters at the ballot box.
2. Petition Referendum: The legislature passes a law [which the Guv signs]. It DOES NOT contain SPECIFIC language that leaves FINAL approval/disapproval up to the voters at the ballot box. On controversial laws - this is the way the legislature and the Guv TRY to BYPASS the voting public's wishes.The ONLY laws that the public CANNOT contest by Petition Referendum are Appropriations/Revenue laws.
In ALL OTHER laws, the voters can then amount a petition drive to gather enough signatures to OVERRIDE the wishes of the legislature and the Guv. This [AGAIN] leaves FINAL approval/disapproval up to the voters at the ballot box.
NOTES:
1. The MD Constitution DOES NOT provide for Ballot Initiative. That is, the public CANNOT initiate a law to be put to the ballot on their own. They can ONLY approve/disapprove of laws passed by the legislature and signed by the Guv.
2. The Same-Sex Marriage law IS NOT subject to judicial review - as it was in CA. In CA, the voters APPROVED an amendment to the CA Constitution [Proposition 8] which [at least at this time] was ruled to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The MD situation is DIFFERENT. If the referendum PASSES [nullifying the Same-Sex Marriage law] - it will be as if it FAILED to pass the legislature in the first place. It WOULD NOT declare that marriage is between a man and a woman [and, thus, be subject to judicial review] - it would only DEFEAT the law that was just passed.
BIG DIFFERENCE ...
Yep. Obama’s working majority. Those who don’t pay taxes, get government largess, and are dead.
Martin O’Malley, sounds like an Irish Catholic to me.
from MARYland, Mother Mary pray for us.
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