Same sex marriage bill

Well it's February and the General Session has awoken from its month long slumber of January with a number of news making and controversial bill introductions. The same sex marriage debate has kicked off yet again this year with the introduction of two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate.

The House bill (HB351 full text and list of sponsors) is actually a repeal of existing Maryland law that specifies that marriage is only between a man and a woman and replaces it with vague language about who can marry in the State. The bill is seemly confusingly and deliberately (mis)named the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act". It has nothing to do with religious freedom other than exempting churches from penalty that do not wish to recognize same sex marriages. On the face of it, from the misleading name one would wonder why anyone would be opposed to such a bill. Let's hope legislators are not deliberately attempting to mislead the public.

The Senate bill (SB169 full text and list of sponsors) takes the existing Family law legal code and adds it to the State Constitution. This likely has little hope of passage in the Democratic controlled General Assembly and probably won' t even be voted on this session. But we will perpetually see this bill coming from conservatives in the Senate. If it did in fact pass the bill would have to be approved by voters since it is amending the State Constitution.

For a rational explanation of why someone would oppose the same sex marriage bill see this page at the Maryland Catholic Conference website. The basic argument is that "the ability of the marriage between a man and woman to bring about new life. This unique capacity of the union of man and woman is why marriage must be protected in law."

More info on the bill at Gay-marriage lobby set -- baltimoresun.com.