The longer the debate about same-sex marriage went on in the House of Delegates on Friday, the worse Scott Bowling felt.
A gay Annapolitan who has run for City Council, Bowling had been optimistic about witnessing history by going to the State House and watching the chamber head for a final vote on the bill.
"I never got the sinking feeling until I sat in the gallery," he said. "The pit in my stomach just got deeper and deeper."
In the end, for Bowling and other gay marriage advocates, the foreboding turned out to be foreshadowing. Faced with an uncertain vote count and growing desires to spend more time studying the issue, the House decided to send the legislation back to committee.
The move essentially ends any chances for passage this year and puts some finality on what had become the overshadowing issue for this General Assembly session.
Yet even in the hours following that decision, advocates on both sides of the issue recognized there is still a fight left to be had on marriage in Maryland.
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A gay Annapolitan who has run for City Council, Bowling had been optimistic about witnessing history by going to the State House and watching the chamber head for a final vote on the bill.
"I never got the sinking feeling until I sat in the gallery," he said. "The pit in my stomach just got deeper and deeper."
In the end, for Bowling and other gay marriage advocates, the foreboding turned out to be foreshadowing. Faced with an uncertain vote count and growing desires to spend more time studying the issue, the House decided to send the legislation back to committee.
The move essentially ends any chances for passage this year and puts some finality on what had become the overshadowing issue for this General Assembly session.
Yet even in the hours following that decision, advocates on both sides of the issue recognized there is still a fight left to be had on marriage in Maryland.
More
8 comments:
Cat fight?
Maryland recognizes any and all marriages performed in any other state and DC. We already have gay marriage, in Maryland, as long it take place in one of four states and DC. Couples come back to all the rights and privileges deemed by the state
Failure to pass this does only one thing. Limit the vast wedding business in Maryland great income opportunity.
The District of Columbia doubled the sales of marriage licenses in 2010, the first full year of marriage equality. Their celebration money was spent in DC, guess Maryland doesn't need the extra business.
Real adult, 9:56.
Scared of something?
I don't mind giving these folks the same rights that Christian married people have.....
I do mind calling it marriage!
Marriage has a biblical origin - the same biblical origins that denounce homosexuality.
Please call it a civil-union or some other name and I will support it forever.
Same-sex and marriage do not belong together in a sentence.
5:23 PM
This coming from you? LMAO
3:33 PM
It's just an un-challenged opinion for now. The courts will decide, and unless they reverse themselves from past decisions, it will be killed again.
5:30
I expect you to not eat shellfish, get a haircut, a tattoo or play football then as well since those are also things that the bible denounces in the same book that it denounces homosexuality. I'm tired of Christians picking and choosing what they accept out of the bible.
Also 5:30, Marriage does not have biblical origins. The bible just co-opted many traditions that already existed in the region that it was written. Marriage existed long before the bible was written, and in cultures that have never been exposed to Christianity, so suppose that the Christian bible is the source of all information about marriage is just plain ignorance.
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