Hundreds Of Opponents And Proponents Of Same Sex Marriage Fill Maryland Senate Tuesday To Testify; Anti-Gay Alliance Defense Fund Representative Takes Stupidity To New High

The Baltimore Sun reports on the testimony delivered Tuesday by proponents and opponents of same sex marriage at the Maryland Senate in Annapolis, the majority of the 11-member Judicial Proceedings Committee have co-sponsored the bill, titled the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protections Act, therefore those against the bill acknowledged that there efforts would have little impact, Governor Martin O’Malley saying he would sign a same sex marriage measure into law. Still, opponents of same sex marriage vowed to fight. Mary Ellen Russell, of the Maryland Catholic Conference, the lobbying arm of the state’s bishops, said “The hearing is a chance to demonstrate the multitude of people on the other side and the diversity of people on the other side. I think it is fairly certain that minds have been made up ... but what the final version of the bill looks like could change.” An estimated 150 signed up to testify Tuesday, which prompted committee Chairman Brian Frosh to limit statements to three minutes. Among those testifying before the panel was Senator Richard S. Madaleno (Democrat-Montgomery County) the Senate’s only openly gay member, who spoke of his spouse, saying “Under Maryland’s civil law, he is a legal stranger to me. He is just my partner. Even that term cheapens our relationship.” Austin R. Nimocks, an attorney for the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund, argued that marriage is intended to create a “stable union of the sake of responsibly producing and raising the next generation. By adopting same sex marriage you are telling those families that mothers and fathers don’t matter.” He added (and consequently angered the panel) that there is a valid argument for single parents to rear children, but not same sex couples, defining the ideal environment for raising children as “with a married mother and father in a low-conflict household.” If the Act passes, it will repeal a 38 year old provision in Maryland law that defines marriage as that existing between a man and a woman. The two-page bill includes a section stating that religious institutions would not be compelled to perform same sex marriages.