Marriage Train Wreck In Maryland?

When marriage equality is put to a referendum vote, it has NEVER won.    Currently that losing streak is at 31 straight losses after the last referenda loss in Maine in 2009.

Now the 'all gay marriage all the time' forces have focused their attention and efforts on Maryland.

It has Democratic majorities in both chambers of its legislature and a Democratic governor willing to sign a bill into law if it passes.  It also has a law on the books that allows referenda to repeal laws as well.

While the momentum is building for this bill to pass, the anti-marriage forces are banking on their tried and true tactics of forcing a referendum and lying through their teeth to carry the day again and kill it..

They're probably printing the signature gathering petitions or already have them ready to go to force the aforementioned referendum as I compose this post right now..

If that marriage referendum does happen, the Equality Maryland folks have a daunting task.   One thing in their favor is that Maryland trails only the four majority-minority states of Hawaii, California, New Mexico and Texas in terms of percentage of non white population.   66% of Maryland's population is White and 4% of it is Asian. 

There is however a 30% chunk of it made up of African-Americans spread across the state and the last time we checked, the relationship between the African-American and gay community has been rather testy since 2008.

The African American community hasn't exactly been happy about, nor have we forgotten the anti Black  bigotry that broke out in the gay community in the wake of the 2008 Prop 8 loss.    There's also the perception in the African American community that the gay community has repeatedly disrespected a very popular in the Black community President Obama. 


So should it come down to a referendum the EQ Maryland folks are facing trying to get a plurality of African Americans to vote with them on this issue when they've done little outreach with a community that has issues with them and will be trying to do so with predominately white spokespeople.

And the anti marriage people will try to exploit that weakness. 



And oh, did I forget to mention a certain anti-gay minister that's down in Beltsville with a large megachurch?

Bigot Harry Jackson, Jr is lying low right now, but you can bet your last paycheck he will be deployed soon enough to lead the charge of the anti-marriage haters.

As of right now, judging by how they're botching the trans rights bill, EQ MD isn't showing that they can build the multicultural coalition it will take to win a marriage referendum here

And if they lose it, the last thing I want to hear is that BS I heard in the wake of the 2008 California loss .

This African-American community, especially in Prince George's County is middle to upper middle class and highly educated, but in Baltimore County and Baltimore city is middle to low income.

You'd better get busy talking to peeps right now and especially the National Black Justice Coalition.   It doesn't take an MIT grad to realize that the African American community is probably going to be the decisive vote in any Maryland referenda battle. 


0-31 is the record, but all losing streaks must come to an end sooner or later.   Will Maryland be the place where that happens, or will we see another same gender marriage freight train that passed the law but got  derailed at the ballot box?