The Maryland General Assembly has voted to recommit the Same Sex Marriage bill. And thus it ends.

[Stinky The Clown]

It will not see the floor of the General Assembly for the remainder of this years' session.

[Ken Burch]

1. But passage was supposed to be assured!

What happened? Who caved?

[TriMera]

2. More info...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x174245

[Ken Burch]

3. Sickening.

Now it may never happened.

They'll find another reason to chicken out next year. And the chickening-out won't actually have the effect of assisting any OTHER progressive goals. You never get traction to help one group by throwing another under the bus.

[yardwork]

6. Looks like the Catholic, Mormon, and fundamentalist Protestant Money got to a bunch of legislators.

Who knows what kinds of bribes and threats were used. Those organizations have millions.

Why do they care so much.

[MNBrewer]

4. Thanks to the homophobic Democrats who finked out on the legislation

[RetiredTrotskyite]

5. With "Friends" Like These...

who needs enemies.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. When one party holds the overwhelming majority of seats, what you get is a LOT of politicians . . .

. . . . who are truly the same as most state's repubicans. In this case, the religiokooks won.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kwassa]

9. Speaking as a Marylander, this is shocking.

We are the bluest of the blue states.

[Jordan Gwendolyn]

10. Yes it is...

...But I think that Maryland needs to consider full equality on gender identity before they consider marriage.

I'm not going to go into a long spiel about it, but here's a blog post I made detailing the arguments.

http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/Jordan/2010/12/29/First-AntiDiscrimination-Then-Marriage-Equality

[Unvanguard]

11. The timing is determined by the political viability of the respective measures.

In Maryland, the political assessment you make in that blog post does not hold up: comprehensive protection from discrimination on the basis of gender identity has less political support (and nothing in the way of "bipartisan" support) than same-sex marriage does. A bill to ban discrimination on the basis of gender identity is currently being considered by the General Assembly, but (as you likely know) it does not provide full equality: discrimination in public accommodations is not covered.

[yardwork]

12. Shows how easy it is to maintain discrimination against gay folks. We don't matter.