Maryland Same Sex Marriage Bill Passes First Vote In Senate

The Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland senators voted 25-22 Wednesday to advance a same sex marriage measure to a final vote, which could come as soon as Thursday. Senator John Astle (Democrat-Annapolis) and the only Anne Arundel senator who had not said how he stands on the issue, voted against the measure. In the process, legislators added further protections for religious groups, like the Knights of Columbus, to exempt them from having to provide educational services or insurance coverage for same sex couples. They also changed the official name of the bill — stripping the words "Religious Freedom" from the title — to make it the "Civil Marriage Protection Act." Proponents of the bill defeated numerous proposals from opponents that would have allowed court clerks to refuse to marry gay couples, kept schools from "promoting same-sex marriage" and renamed the bill "Same-Sex Marriage."