Nov 17, 2006  |  By: JOSHUA LYNSEN  | COMMENTS     

Maryland’s gay rights activists, buoyed by several key election wins, plan to seek new benefits during the next session of the General Assembly.

Equality Maryland Executive Director Dan Furmansky and others said they intend to lobby lawmakers to extend benefits to the partners of state employees and to enact new discrimination protections for transgendered people.

“We absolutely can pass the transgender anti-discrimination bill,” he said, “with some education, lobbying and support from the greater LGBT community.”

Furmansky said legislators also must stop discriminating against gay state employees, and grant them “equal pay for equal work.”

“Maryland needs to be granting domestic partner benefits to state employees as a matter of good health care practice,” he said, “and insuring more people in our state.”

Such initiatives are expected to receive support from Martin O’Malley, the Democrat who defeated Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Nov. 7.

O’Malley is mayor of Baltimore, which offers domestic partner benefits to city employees.

Craig Wiley, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore, said O’Malley will be an ally for gay Marylanders.

“I think he’ll have a tremendous amount of influence,” Wiley said. “Of course, we’re sad to see him leave Baltimore, but he’ll be able to do more in Annapolis.”

Democratic domination

O’Malley will work with a General Assembly dominated by Democrats, including many that Equality Maryland backed.

Election results have not been finalized, but Democrats gained at least six seats in the House, adding to their 98-43 advantage.

The chamber includes three openly gay Democratic delegates, including newcomer Heather Mizeur.

Democrats also gained one Senate seat, to lead Republicans there 33-14. Among the new senators is Rich Madaleno, a Democrat who is the state’s first openly gay senator.

“I think whenever you have an open person — in whatever environment — I think it changes the tenor,” he said. “Hopefully, seeing me, my relationship with my partner, it will help people feel comfortable.”

Activists said Madaleno, Mizeur and other gay lawmakers can help explain why initiatives like transgender protections and partner benefits are necessary.

“I think both are achievable,” Wiley said. “I mean, it’s just what’s fair.”

But gay activists don’t see either initiative as an easy win. Furmansky said partner benefits, for example, might require collective bargaining.

“I feel great about the state of gay rights in Maryland,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean we have a blank check to go before the General Assembly and say we want this and this and that and that.

“Everything we do is extremely calculated, and the result of great deliberation.”

And those plans could change after the state’s highest court decides a pending gay marriage case.

The Maryland Court of Appeals will hear a case Dec. 4 challenging the state’s ban on same-sex unions. A lower court ruled that the ban is unconstitutional.

Nine gay couples and a man whose partner died are parties to the suit seeking marriage rights. The case, Deane v. Conaway, was filed in July 2004 by the American Civil Liberties Union and Equality Maryland.

Furmansky said if the court grants equal marriage rights, Equality Maryland would focus its efforts on preventing a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Other outcomes also have been considered, even though a ruling is expected to take months.

“If we get a New Jersey-style ruling, we have to prepare for the legislative implementation of full equality,” he said, “not some half-baked, quasi-parallel institution.”

Furmansky said a defeat in court would trigger Equality Maryland to seek support from state lawmakers.

He said such requests would go beyond last year’s vetoed Medical Decision Making Act, which would have given gay and straight unmarried couples several rights, such as hospital visitation and medical decision-making power.

“If we lose in court,” he said, “we’ll be going back to the General Assembly with a far greater request than just the rights of marriage related to health care and post-mortem decision making.

“We don’t intend to pursue a limited domestic partner registry in the year when we expect a ruling by our high court. That doesn’t even remotely approximate equality under the law.”

Furmansky said although the marriage case ruling will shape Equality Maryland’s priorities, the group isn’t waiting for resolution before it acts.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t pursue individual, piecemeal bills,” he said, “but 2007 is clearly the year that our multi-year campaign will come to a head.”