Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler's support for same-sex marriage comes in stark contrast to other senior Democrats like Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller. (Photo by Kathleen Lange/AP)
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KEVIN NAFF
Friday, February 22, 2008
THERE WAS A welcome breakthrough in the fight for marriage rights last week in Maryland.
Attorney General Douglas Gansler, considered a rising star of the Democratic Party in the state, publicly announced his support for same-sex marriage at a hearing in Annapolis.
“Dismantling this final barrier to full citizenship for gay and lesbian citizens is a moral imperative and a logical, historical inevitability,” he said. “This is a basic matter of fairness to thousands of Maryland families who are discriminated against in terms of the hundreds of benefits of marriage.”
Gansler’s honest, brave stance comes in stark contrast to other Democratic leaders in the state, most notably Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D-Calvert), who has said he not only opposes marriage rights for same-sex couples, but civil unions too. Miller spoke out against the Baltimore circuit court ruling that would have overturned a 1973 law limiting marriage to a man and a woman. That ruling was reversed on appeal last year by the state’s high court.
“In my opinion, the plaintiffs forum shopped,” Miller said of the original ruling. “I don’t think the same opinion would have been rendered in 90 percent of the other circuits in the state of Maryland.”
After the high court dashed the hopes of Maryland’s gay couples and narrowly upheld the 1973 law, Miller dismissed calls for the state legislature to act.
“People can introduce any bill they’d like, but at this juncture I don’t believe the votes are there to change the law,” he said. “The burden will be on the people who feel it’s needed to explain the need for a change.”
Well now the state’s attorney general has explained it to Miller.
“I have a lot of friends who are gay who have partners,” Gansler said. “And to see what they go through and sort of the second-class status they’re subjected to because they’re not allowed to be married, that’s certainly something that affected me.”
Bravo, Mr. Gansler!
The state’s top law enforcement official believes legalized same-sex marriage is an “inevitability.” Let’s hope Gov. Martin O’Malley is paying attention, too, as his position on the subject has changed in recent years. To his credit, O’Malley has said he is open to signing a marriage bill but that he prefers civil unions.
But Gansler has words of wisdom for civil unions advocates, too.
“Is civil unions a great first step?” Gansler said. “Yes. Does it still make people like [gay state Sen.] Rich Madaleno a second-class citizen in their marriage life? Yes.”
Civil unions fall short of equality under the law and create more problems than they solve, as the people of New Jersey are now learning.
Gansler joins a growing, bipartisan list of elected officials who support same-sex marriage rights, including New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders (R). Welcome to the club.
LAST WEEK BROUGHT a devastating reminder of the risks inherent in living openly — or even just dressing differently from other kids.
Lawrence King, who was just 15, was shot in the head in front of fellow students at a junior high school in Oxnard, Calif. He was later declared brain dead. The suspect is only 14 years old and now faces a first-degree murder charge.
Police have not determined a motive, but King was openly gay, according to media reports quoting fellow students, and sometimes wore “feminine clothing and makeup.” Police are investigating the hate crime angle.
The worst thing that happened in my junior high was the occasional fistfight on the playground after school. As a gay kid who also didn’t quite fit in with the others, I fought my share of bullies after school or during recess.
But to be shot twice on campus in junior high for being gay takes anti-gay hate to disturbing levels. At the risk of sounding like an old codger, I find it shocking and heartbreaking that kids are learning to hate — and to act on it so violently — at such a young age.
Tales of gun violence are now in the headlines each week. From Virginia Tech to the more recent shopping mall shootings to this tragedy in California, it’s clear that guns have pervaded our culture. And since King’s murder, there was yet another mass shooting on a college campus — this time in Dekalb, Ill., in which a gunman shot and killed five other students before committing suicide.
President Bush launched the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11, but we shrug our collective shoulders at the news that nearly 18,000 people are now dying annually from gun violence.
What will it take for the American people to realize that the only solution to this madness is tough gun control laws? The nefarious influence of the NRA ensures that we will one day soon exceed 20,000 fatal shootings in a single year. This is unfathomable to residents of Europe and Canada, who are lucky to live in societies where lawmakers have restricted access to guns.
Our lawmakers have grown so spineless on this issue, that even in Virginia — the site of the worst mass shooting in history at Virginia Tech — the General Assembly failed to act. As the Washington Post noted this week, the state legislature has left open a loophole that “enables anyone, including ex-cons, escaped felons and those suffering from severe mental illnesses, to purchase firearms from private dealers at gun shows without undergoing a background check of any kind.”
This sort of cowardice from our public officials costs thousands of lives each year.
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