Jan 07, 2005  |  By: JOE CREA  | COMMENTS     

On the eve of the 2005 Maryland General Assembly session, gay Del. Rich Madaleno (D-Montgomery County) said that a bill to add sexual orientation to the state’s hate crime statute would pass “easily and quickly,” but a version that includes gender identity and expression “is a step too far for many” in the state Senate.

“As a result we aren’t going to get anything passed,” Madaleno said. “I would like to make progress, no matter what the issue is. I’ll take 50 percent and declare the day partly sunny rather than fight for the total victory and get nothing.”

Dan Furmansky, executive director of Equality Maryland, a statewide gay rights group, said his group would only support a bill that “unequivocally includes the transgender community.”

Madaleno argued that an assailant would target a transgendered person because they assume the victim to be gay, not transgendered.

“Our community may understand the difference but to the uniformed perpetrator of the hate crime, there is no difference,” Madaleno said. “If someone beats up a person because they thought they were Jewish and they turned out not to be Jewish, well, isn’t that still a hate crime?”

Madaleno said he has asked the state’s attorney general whether a hate crime law inclusive of sexual orientation would be enough to cover gender identity. He said that the attorney general thought that adding just sexual orientation to the state’s hate crime statute would protect transgendered people, especially if the law enacted protections based on “real or perceived sexual orientation.”

“I would argue that we could come up with a bill that is inclusive, without the word,” Madaleno said.

Furmansky disagreed with Madaleno’s assessment.

“We don’t want to leave that open to interpretation,” Furmansky said. “If it is true that sexual orientation can be interpreted in such a way, then at the very least that language [‘real or perceived’] should be included in the bill. To not do so would be an egregious error.”

Anthony McCarthy, a gay political commentator for WYPR radio in Maryland, said that lawmakers have been “explicitly honest” about how far the state is willing to progress on gay rights and that they aren’t ready to add gender identity and expression to the state’s hate crime statute.

But he said it would be wrong to support any hate crime legislation that does not include transgendered people.

“It would be a real mistake for our community,” McCarthy said. “It’s been a horrible message to the transgender community about how serious we take acts of violence against that community.

“Most of the hate crimes cases that I’m aware of in Maryland are against transgender people. For us to support hate crimes penalties without understanding the full breadth would be a real mistake.”

Rally against gay marriage planned
Invigorated by an ACLU lawsuit challenging Maryland’s prohibition on gay marriage, opponents of marital rights for same-sex couples expect thousands of residents and religious leaders to gather in Annapolis on Jan. 27 to defend “our families, our children and our civil society.”

Del. Donald Dwyer (R-Anne Arundel) has spearheaded the rally and efforts to protect traditional marriage in Maryland. The rally is designed to enlist the support of Maryland church leaders who, according to the Web site DefendMarylandMarriage.com, need to “be exposed to the vile and militaristic agenda of the homosexual activist and that they are exposed to their intent to sodomize our children.”

The Web site is owned and operated by Lure Music, Inc., of Ellicott City, Md.

Dwyer and other opponents of equal marriage rights plan to pressure the Maryland General Assembly to adopt an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state’s constitution this year.

Two attempts to strengthen Maryland’s existing ban on same-sex marriage were defeated by large margins during the 2004 legislative session.

But those defeats came before the ACLU announced Deane vs. Conaway, the lawsuit filed in Baltimore City Court in July on behalf of nine same-sex couples and a man whose partner recently died. The lawsuit was filed with the cooperation of Equality Maryland and a hearing is scheduled in Baltimore Circuit Court on March 14.

Madaleno said he does not think there is much of a chance that an amendment banning gay marriage could pass the General Assembly.

“The reality is that the only way to get an amendment ...