July 2011

By Jamie Raskin, a Maryland State Senator representing Silver Spring and Takoma Park, and a professor of constitutional law at American University Washington College of Law, where he directs the Program on Law and Government. He was a lead sponsor of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which passed the Maryland Senate earlier this year and, as floor leader, managed several days of legislative debate on the measure. Raskin is a Senior Fellow at People For the American Way.

Advocates of marriage equality in Maryland are delighted that our Governor, Martin O’Malley, has decided to introduce a marriage bill next year and throw himself with vigor into this important fight for equal rights for gay and lesbian Marylanders.  As a lead sponsor of this year’s legislation in the State Senate--where it passed on a vote of 25-21, I have a strong sense that the Governor’s decision puts us on a clear path to victory in the House of Delegates--and soon.

To be clear, I am not one who ever faulted O’Malley (pictured) for the way things fell apart in the House of Delegates in spring of 2011. Those of you watching the Bermuda Triangle-style events that took place there may recall that freshman Democratic sponsors of the bill dropped off, pleading ignorance of its meaning, while other Delegates decided to play “Let’s-Make-a-Deal” with this major piece of civil rights legislation, offering their votes only in return for a juicy piece of legislative pork for their districts.  It’s true that a robust lobbying effort by the Governor might have tamed some of the wilder behavior displayed on the House side, but even the extremely able and popular House Speaker, Michael Busch, could not put out the strange political brushfires that seemed to break out on a daily basis.  Three of his six Committee Chairmen themselves took a walk on us, along with one member of his Democratic whip hierarchy. The Speaker finally made the call to send the bill back to Committee without a floor vote.

I am not sure what anyone could have done in that environment to turn things around. We can’t forget that the bill that passed the Senate was a sturdy and sea-worthy vehicle that reconciled every conceivable legitimate desire for religious liberty exemption with the overriding constitutional and legal command of equal rights under law. We can’t forget that there were seven -- yes, seven -- openly gay and demonstrably eloquent Delegates in the House who beseeched their colleagues from the floor to do the right thing. (In the Senate, we have only one, the estimable Rich Madaleno.) We can’t forget that every House Republican voted against us whereas, on the Senate side, the Minority Leader, the refreshingly old-fashioned Allan Kittleman, actually gave up his party leadership post in order to support the bill and show that the party of Lincoln still has a heartbeat, however lonely and faint. We also can’t forget that there was a huge conservative religious mobilization in the state against marriage equality after we saw victory in the Senate and that Maryland, after all, was the Catholic colony back in the day.