Same-sex marriage opinion was politics unusual in
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803752.html
By Aaron C.
Monday, March 1, 2010; B01
On paper, the declaration last week by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) that the state would begin recognizing same-sex marriages from other places might have seemed right in line with a state ranked as having the nation's largest percentage of left-leaning voters.
In reality, it violated the way
Even though Democrats hold a 2 to 1 advantage among voters and dominate both houses of the General Assembly, lawmakers in
The state's brand of liberalism is explained in part by geography and in part by culture. Democrats are hesitant to embrace many progressive social policies, lest they upset the state's many Catholics, evangelicals and others with deep religious convictions.
And although parts of
The state's years-long debate on approving slots, which ultimately went before voters, and its slow march toward a ban on the death penalty is more typical of
Democratic conservatism among state lawmakers also frustrates progressive advocates in realms beyond the social: Corporate-tax restrictions, for instance, lag behind those in some Republican states, such as
"We are more comfortable, seemingly, waiting for other states to tiptoe into territory that is trendsetting to see what the reaction is before we step up and do the same thing," said Del. Heather R. Mizeur, a Montgomery County Democrat and one of the state's few openly gay lawmakers.
"We are a Democratic state, but in the big-tent sense, we have a lot of conservative Democrats, and we do things in a very measured sense."
Against such inertia, Gansler's decision to press ahead on gay rights not only got ahead of the curve but jumped the cautious political track on which
Gansler used a request from Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr., another openly gay Montgomery Democrat, to reverse an opinion and direct state agencies to begin offering same-sex married couples the same rights afforded heterosexual ones.
Gansler insisted that his decision was not playing politics and was right, given that the state has respected less-scrupulous contracts than out-of-state same-sex marriage licenses. Gansler's critics, however, insist that he intended to circumvent the legislature.
Shrewd or misguided?
The decision sets up a likely showdown in the state's highest court, and Gansler said he thinks his opinion has provided a successful road map for same-sex couples to win such cases.
If voters become more comfortable with same-sex marriage over the next four years, the move could prove a shrewd one for an attorney general already positioning himself to run for governor in 2014. If not, he could be cast as too liberal even in his party's own primary.
The other Democrats who hold statewide office and who are likely to seek the nomination haven't supported same-sex marriage.
More immediately: In an election year with the seats of not only O'Malley but all 188 state legislators up for grabs, Gansler's decision exerts new pressure on Democrats with tenuous holds on the state's more conservative districts. The state's Republican Party has made clear that a primary focus in November will be to pick off five seats to break the Senate's filibuster-proof majority. At least some of those Democrats are likely to face committee votes on same-sex bills in coming weeks.
"We have a long history of pragmatic politics," said
Bohanan then described an exchange that often typifies some of the tension within the state's Democratic majority: "Somebody said in [the] Appropriations [Committee] the other day that, 'Well, you know
Defining the Democrats
A recent
The party's power is centered in the middle of the state, in
Religion also plays a moderate role. A strong arc of Catholic voters resides throughout Howard and Anne Arundel counties, boosting the legislature's ranks of Catholics to 53, or almost a third of lawmakers. Catholics are only outnumbered by the half of
"Maryland's electorate, and therefore its lawmakers, are different than in other blue states," said Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., a pastor and Baltimore County Democrat who authored a House bill that failed last month to ban recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages.
"The leadership of both the House and the Senate are Catholic, and I think the religious aspect has a lot to do with what happens in
Although Burns's bill failed, a similar measure against recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages remains active in the Senate.
That bill has 10 co-sponsors: five Republicans and five Democrats. Three -- including Sen. Norman R. Stone Jr. (
The Democratic co-sponsors underscore the diversity of views within the party in the all-important Senate. Liberal legislation can pass the House but often dies there. Democrats dominate the chamber, holding 33 of 47 seats, but there is little consensus on social issues.
In recent years, conservative Democrats have sided with Republicans on several other divisive issues, including stem-cell research.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said he wasn't sure how much debate Stone's measure would get, saying he considered the House as having already dealt with it. Miller said bills to pass same-sex marriage also haven't gone anywhere in the Senate because "it would be very difficult to get past a filibuster."
Still, Miller, who on many occasions has tried to curtail debate on social issues since he began presiding over the Senate in 1987, said his members' views on the latest hot-button social issue, same-sex marriage, are just one slice of being a
"We're not going to tolerate a litmus test for people who belong to the Democratic Party," he said.
Jennifer Kali, 31, recently gave birth to a daughter and plans to travel with her partner, Karen, from their
"The fact that we're even talking about it," Kali said, "is a big deal."
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