In the News: Maryland’s House Passes Same-Sex Marriage Bill, Sends to Senate

from The New York Times.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The Maryland House narrowly passed a law legalizing same-sex marriage on Friday, delivering a major victory to Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, who had proposed it. But its implementation remained uncertain as its opponents promised to take it to voters in November.

The bill, known as the Civil Marriage Protection Act, squeaked by in a 72-to-67 vote, drawing loud applause and cheers from proponents in the House. A similar bill failed in the chamber last year.

The measure still faces a vote in the Senate, where it is expected to pass, before Mr. O’Malley can sign it into law. But opponents have pledged to put in on the ballot for a vote on Nov. 6, a prospect that the bill’s supporters acknowledge is practically a foregone conclusion.

The vote, said Anthony O’Donnell, the Republican minority leader, amounted to “beginning a process, not ending a process. The citizens of Maryland will have the final say.”

The debate stretched for hours in the 18th-century, wooden-domed statehouse, and was punctuated by emotional entreaties by supporters of the bill, including several gay and lesbian delegates, who talked about their own lives, and other delegates who invoked Jim Crow laws.

“This is the civil rights issue of our generation,” said Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., a Democrat from Baltimore. “I’m overwhelmed,” Luke Clippinger, one of the seven openly gay members of the Maryland House, said after the vote. “My voice is still breaking.”

When asked what the vote meant to him, he said, “It means I’m here.”

After the vote, lawmakers who voted for the bill — mostly Democrats — gathered outside the chamber cheering and hugging. Soon after, Mr. O’Malley arrived to congratulate the delegates. He embraced Mr. Clippinger.

The bill’s passage would make Maryland the eighth state to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. It comes a day after New Jersey’s legislature passed a similar bill, though it was vetoed on Friday by Gov. Chris Christie. New York State legalized same-sex marriage last year, and this month Washington State did so.

Read the full article from The New York Times.
Read more In the News.