Maryland Marriage Equality Bill Survives By 1 Vote

Tiffany Alston, a co-sponsor of the bill voted against marriage equality
after her amendment to create civil unions was defeated

Drama at today's Baltimore House Judiciary Committee vote on HB 175. The bill squeaked through to the House floor by a vote of 12-10 with wavering supporter Sam Arora voting yes while another fickle co-sponsor of the legislation, Del. Tiffany Alston, voted no. The measure was only saved from an 11-11 defeat by the House Judiciary Committee chair Joseph Valliaro,  Jr. voted in favor to send the measure to the whole body even though he does not support marriage equality!

Here's the vote tally on the legislation. People voting YES should be thanked by marriage equality supporters:

Joseph F. Vallario, Jr., Chair (410) 841-3488, (301) 858-3488 - YES
 Kathleen M. Dumais, Vice-Chair (410) 841-3052, (301) 858-3052  - YES

Tiffany T. Alston _ NOCurtis S. (Curt) Anderson _ YESSam Arora - YESJill P. Carter - YESLuke H. Clippinger _ YESJohn W. E. Cluster, Jr. _ NOFrank M. Conaway, Jr. - YESDon H. Dwyer, Jr. -NOMichael J. Hough - NOKevin Kelly - NOSusan C. Lee - YESSusan K. McComas - NOMichael A. McDermott - NOKeiffer J. Mitchell, Jr. - YESNeil C. Parrott - NOLuiz R. S. Simmons - YESMichael D. Smigiel, Sr. - NOKriselda Valderrama - YESGeraldine Valentino-Smith - NOJeffrey D. Waldstreicher  - YES

The bill now goes to the House floor where Democrats outnumber Republicans 98 to 43 but the Marriage Protection Act does not have 71 co-sponsors, and as we have seen, being a co-sponsor does not guarantee that you will actually vote YES on the legislation!

Even if the measure does become law, heterosexual supremacists like the National Organization for Marriage have vowed to collect signatures for a referendum on the measure in 2012. They'll need to collect 55,736 signatures by June 30 and 18,579 by May 31st. Thus would prevent HB 175/SB 116 from going into effect until after the vote, a similar situation to what happened in 2009 in Maine. Voters that November passed Question 1 by a vote of 52.8% to 42.2%