Oct 10, 2008  |  By: AMY CAVANAUGH  | COMMENTS     

Weeks after Maryland’s high court ruled that Montgomery County’s transgender rights law need not face public referendum, a conservative legal group has mounted another challenge.

The Alliance Defense Fund filed suit Sept. 29 against the Montgomery County Board of Elections, alleging that voters were unconstitutionally denied the right to vote on a law extending new rights to transgender residents and workers.

The legal group filed the lawsuit on behalf of Montgomery County voters. Named as plaintiffs are Montgomery County residents Fred Bloem, Elaine McDermott, Lisa Gundling, Joyce Pratt, Mian Siddique and Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government.

The case says the election board did not have the authority to remove the referendum from the Nov. 4 ballot, as allowed by the high court’s ruling, and notes that the plaintiffs are seeking a restraining order to suspend the transgender rights law.

This lawsuit comes after a Sept. 9 decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals to let Montgomery County’s transgender anti-discrimination measure go into effect. The court noted in its decision that the law need not face public referendum.

Nonetheless, Alliance Defense Fund Litigation Counsel Amy Smith said the organization would press ahead with its case.

“A democratic government should not silence its people,” she said in an Oct. 1 statement. “The board has no legal authority to shut out 900,000 Montgomery County voters who should have their say on this new law. We hope the court will recognize the constitutional rights of Maryland voters and allow their valid signatures to count.”

Local transgender rights advocates told the Blade they did not see the lawsuit as a threat to the law and called the Alliance Defense Fund lawsuit frivolous.

“Clearly, the Citizens for a Responsible Government is obsessed with preventing transgender people from having these basic anti-discrimination protections and will stop at nothing to overturn them,” said Dan Furmansky, Equality Maryland’s executive director.

“For them, this is a frivolous case that won’t withstand more than a minute of scrutiny from the circuit court.”

Dana Beyer, an Equality Maryland board member and transgender woman, said the ADF lawsuit was filed to “play to the base and show they’re not giving up,” adding that she believes “this lawsuit is just grandstanding.”

“While the [Citizens for a Responsible Government] lied and misrepresented the facts, they went out and did what they were permitted to do under the law, as did we,” she said. “And we were willing to abide by the decision. I can empathize with the distress over having to deal with the Board of Elections that didn’t get it right, since we feel the same, because they didn’t manage our side well either, but that’s just the way it is.”

Furmansky and Beyer agreed that transgender people who live and work in Montgomery County should not be concerned about the lawsuit overturning the new rights.

“This is a law, and I see that they’re calling it [Montgomery Council] Bill Number 23-07 on various web sites, but it’s not a bill anymore, it’s a law,” Beyer said. “And it’s as valid a law as the laws prohibiting discrimination on race or sexual orientation. It’s over and done with. The only recourse is to get a County Council elected in 2010 that would change the law, but they currently don’t have any paths through which they can do it.”

Furmansky said it was unlikely that the lawsuit would affect the Nov. 4 ballot in any way.

“Equality Maryland is taking this seriously, and Lambda Legal and our attorney are more than willing to intervene in this case should some unforeseen threat arise,” he said. “However, there’s almost unanimous agreement from the county and our attorneys that the Court of Appeals has ruled that the referendum shouldn’t go to the ballot and won’t.

“The ballot has been certified and the election is soon and this lawsuit hasn’t even been heard in circuit court.”