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BREAKING: Maryland House Of Delegates Passes Marriage Equality Bill | After two days of contentious debate and the consideration of several amendments, the Maryland House of Delegates has passed marriage equality legislation with a vote of 72-67. One of the amendments passed delayed the date of enactment from October to January. Another created a non-severability clause, such that if the religious protections are overturned by the courts, the entire law would have to be deemed invalid. The measure still has to advance through the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee and full Senate, and even then, it is likely to be challenged by a referendum. Listen to the final vote:

Update

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) responds: “Today, the House of Delegates voted for human dignity. Speaker Busch and his fellow Delegates deserve a lot of credit for their hard work. At its heart, their vote was a vote for Maryland’s children….Now, as the Senate prepares to vote, all of us are needed – and we’re prepared to redouble our efforts. The common thread running through our efforts together in Maryland is the thread of human dignity; the dignity of work, the dignity of faith, the dignity of family, the dignity of every individual. Love is an unalienable right.”

Update

Delegate Sam Arora (D), who ran on a pro-marriage platform, voted against the measure.

Update

According to Del. Mizeur, Del. John Bohanan intended to vote for the bill, but his vote was not recorded. The updated vote count is 72-67.

Related Posts

Alyssa

A Term to Replace ‘Piracy’

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 17, 2012 at 6:36 pm

One complaint I hear a fair amount in the conversation about how to get more people to get their content through licit sources is that the word “piracy” isn’t really a fair or accurate term to describe the behavior of individuals as opposed to large-scale content theft operations. I’m not really comfortable describing individual action to get content outside of legal channels in terms that are positive, or even neutral. But I’m genuinely invested in deescalating this debate, because I think it’s the only way to forge meaningful cultural change, however square that ambition might seem. And I’d love to hear suggestions, if people have them, for language that would provoke a less negative reaction from the people we’d like to get to quit downloading content for free that they really ought to be paying for.

NEWS FLASH

Kentucky House Approves Bill To Restore Voting Rights For Released Felons | Yesterday, the Kentucky House of Representatives approved a measure for a statewide referendum on the state’s permanent disenfranchisement of people convicted of a felony. Currently, Kentucky is one of just four states — joined by Iowa, Virginia, and Florida — that strip voting rights from anyone convicted of a felony, even after they have repaid their debt to society. If the bill is approved by the Republican-held Senate, voters will decide in the fall whether to restore voting rights for released felons, except those convicted of the most serious crimes.

LGBT

Opponent Of Same-Sex Marriage Explains His Switch: I Support Equality Because I’m ‘Pro-Life’

By Igor Volsky on Feb 17, 2012 at 6:30 pm

GOP Maryland Delegate Wade Kach (R) delivered an emotional address explaining his evolution towards supporting marriage equality, just moments before the state House passed legislation extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians. Kach had voted down the bill as recently as Monday night, in a committee vote, and had co-sponsored a measure to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

But tonight, Kach attributed his change of heart to his “pro-life” roots, explaining that he changed his mind after hearing testimony from gay and lesbian families, and realizing that their children deserved the same legal protections as the kids of opposite-sex parents:

KACH: I’m a pro-life legislator and as a pro-life legislator, I believe that it is my responsibility to make certain that children are taken care of. This child — if this couple were to be able to have a civil marriage would be taken care of. This child would have the rights that a child of a traditional married couple would have. So, I left that hearing a changed person….I thought to myself I’m sent here to represent my constituents. I’m sent here because my constituents have faith in my judgment. However, my constituents did not send me here to judge people. So I am casting a green vote for this bill and I’m hoping all of you that especially care about children will think of them and hopefully we are going to as a state all of our children are going to have the same rights so that they can prosper in this state.

Listen:

The Baltimore Sun reported last night that former Vice President Dick Cheney — a long-time supporter of marriage equality — personally lobbied Kach on the issue.

NEWS FLASH

Officers Get Credit For Training Led By Anti-Muslim Activist | A state panel will provide credit for a training course led by a former FBI agent who has said a mosque has no legal right to exist. John Guandolo led a training for the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department at a church whose pastor urged that a mosque not be built in Murfreesboro, TN. The Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission unanimously approved the credit without discussing the objections from Muslim groups. One commissioner said he voted for the credit because he supports anti-terrorism training. The county sheriff justified the training by saying that his department wants to find out more about Islam, but local Muslims labeled it as “hate training.”

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 17, 2012 at 6:10 pm

Health

Oklahoma Moves Planned Parenthood To The Back Of The Line For Funding

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 17, 2012 at 6:00 pm

The Oklahoma legislature is considering a bill to dictate where Oklahoma prioritizes state and federal funds, which one lawmaker says is designed to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood clinics. Rep. Doug Cox (R), an emergency room physician, said that if Planned Parenthood was not available, many women and children would not be able to receive counseling, cancer screenings, and children’s services.

The bill, HB 2324, would re-prioritize the state’s family planning grants and public funding so that the money went to public entities first then nonpublic and federally qualified health centers. Essentially, the prioritization would put Planned Parenthood at the end of the line for grants and cut off its funding. Cox called the bill a “knee-jerk reaction” to the national debate about Planned Parenthood and abortion that would hurt the women of Oklahoma:

About 70 percent of the women going to Planned Parenthood clinics in Oklahoma receive Medicaid, and the others are low income, he said. They would be unable to receive counseling, cancer tests and children’s services if Planned Parenthood clinics weren’t available. [...]

“I don’t know why we’re confusing abortion with family planning,” Cox said. “I suspect that if it wasn’t for family planning the amount of women contributing to society and the Legislature and the workforce that makes this country great would be far different.

“A lot of them would be home barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen,” Cox said.

“I don’t want to revert to those times. I don’t want to punish Oklahoma women for getting healthier.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jason Murphey (R), would not say if his bill would prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving state or federal money for family planning or counseling services. But last year, Murphey tried to take $460,000 from a federal nutrition program administered by Planned Parenthood, which serves 9,300 people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His bill would have redirected the funds to other groups that do not offer abortion referral services.

Economy

Following Progressive Pressure, Apple Supplier FoxConn Increases Wages For Its Employees

By Adam Peck on Feb 17, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Chinese manufacturer FoxConn, a key supplier for the world’s largest technology company Apple Inc., today announced it will be raising workers’ wages by 16 to 25 percent in response to public outcry over reports of worker mistreatment. The move comes after nearly 250,000 individuals signed a petition on Change.org demanding Apple hold its suppliers accountable for violations of fair labor practices.

FoxConn is best known in the United States as Apple Inc.’s largest supplier, manufacturing the technology giant’s popular iPad, iPhone and signature Mac computer products, in addition to dozens of other gadgets for other technology companies. But it has also gained a reputation as a chronic violator of human rights and fair labor practices.

A widely-circulated cover story in Wired Magazine’s March 2011 issue looked at an alarming string of 17 suicides in the spring of 2010 by workers in the FoxConn facility, and a subsequent report conducted a year later showed how the conditions that were thought to have led to the suicides were still prevalent in the factory.

The petition on Change.org was created in reaction to the January 6 episode of popular radio show This American Life. The episode was an adaptation of a one-man show performed by Mike Daisey called “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

In the report, Daisey — who traveled to China to learn about FoxConn and its employees firsthand — described a factory where managers turn the other cheek on child labor, and workers, some as young as 13, are forced to stand during 14 hour shifts and live in cramped dormitories on the FoxxConn campus. In the weeks since, Apple announced it was requesting that the Fair Labor Association conduct random searches of the FoxxConn plant for violations of Apple’s supplier policy.

As Think Progress has noted, Apple, which recently overtook Exxon as the world’s largest corporation in terms of market capitalization, has spent the last decade earning record profits while the workers who make its products continue to toil in potentially hazardous working conditions.

Update

On March 16, This American Life and Chicago Public Media officially retracted the episode, citing inconsistencies with the story as told by Mike Daisey. In a statement, host Ira Glass explains that while the show was able to independently verify several key facts, other elements of the story remained unconfirmed and have since been disputed by the translator who accompanied Daisey during his trip to China. Read the full release here (PDF).

NEWS FLASH

Hospital To Provide Kidney Transplant For Dying Undocumented Immigrant | A California hospital has agreed to perform a kidney operation for Jesus Navarro, a dying undocumented immigrant who had previously been told he could not have the surgery because of his immigration status. An online petition pushing the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center to allow his transplant gained 140,000 of signatures within days of being launched by a former kidney transplant patient. The hospital announced last week that it was moving forward with Navarro’s procedure so long as he continued to have insurance to cover post-transplant care. “[T]his issue of assuring coverage for very, very expensive care is critical, and our current health care financing system is so fragmented it puts people in a real bind,” said Dr. Joshua Adler, UCSF’s chief medical officer. “That bind is even more limiting for people who are undocumented.”

– Fatima Najiy

By Guest Blogger on Feb 17, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Alyssa

Brett Ratner: A Model for Celebrity Redemption?

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 17, 2012 at 5:21 pm

Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that Hollywood lacks standards for what acts make someone unemployable. But part of the problem is also that while we have a sense of what behavior we don’t want to see treated as if it’s acceptable, there isn’t a clear standard for what constitutes making amends, not just to the people who were directly harmed by celebrities’ actions or remarks, but to the rest of us who have to deal with those people as public figures.

The way director Brett Ratner’s behaved in the wake of his comments last fall that “rehearsal is for fags,” which lost him a chance to run the Academy Awards, is an instructive example of what celebrity redemption might look like. At the time, he promised that “I will be taking real action over the coming weeks and months in an effort to do everything I can both professionally and personally to help stamp out the kind of thoughtless bigotry I’ve so foolishly perpetuated.” And he’s lived up to that promise, committing to produce a new ad campaign for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. It’s an experience that both sounds like it’s been educational for Ratner, and that’s letting an organization that represents the people he offended derive a substantive benefit.

Now, there will always be people who judge someone who’s in the process of redemption. But I think this offers a pretty reasonable standard for deciding if someone should be eligible not just to work, but for career-enhancing slots at an event like the Grammys or a production deal at FX that’s going to require a lot of promotional heavy lifting. Has the person who broke the law or committed the sin against decency educated themselves? And have they made a substantive contribution—whether it’s a donation of their services or raising money for a cause—to make public recompense and reinforce the idea that what they did was wrong, not just for them, but for anyone? If Chris Brown or Charlie Sheen had committed to raising a very serious amount of money for domestic violence charities and followed through on the work, I’d be much more inclined to consider forgiving them. It would be an acknowledgement that they understood that their behavior was wrong, and connected to larger issues in society, and that they were committed to remedying them both.

LGBT

Chris Christie Vetoes Marriage Equality Bill

By Igor Volsky on Feb 17, 2012 at 5:16 pm

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has issued a conditional veto of a bill extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians in the state, the Associated Press reports. “I have been just as adamant that same-sex couples in a civil union deserve the very same rights and benefits enjoyed by married couples – as well as the strict enforcement of those rights and benefits,” Christie said in his statement. “To that end, I include in my conditional veto the creation of a strong Ombudsman for Civil Unions to carry on New Jersey’s strong tradition of tolerance and fairness. The Ombudsman will be charged with increasing awareness of the law regarding civil unions, will provide a clear point of contact for those who have questions or concerns and will be required to report any evidence of the law being violated.”

The legislature now has two years or until January 2014 to try and override his veto. On Thursday, the Assembly passed the bill in a vote of 42-33, falling 12 votes short shy of a two-thirds majority. The Senate was three votes short in its vote on Monday.

Democrats would have to vote to approve Christie’s offer of an Ombudsman and Assembly Majority Louis Greenwald has released the following statement: “Thousands and thousands of New Jersey families are denied financial security, health security and fundamental equal rights every day because of a failed civil union experiment. And yet in spite of their second-class citizenship, the governor single-handedly – -through the stroke of his pen – seeks to codify discrimination against them…He has just violated his own oath of office. And in the end, he will answer to every New Jersey citizen for his actions.”

Update

Democratic Assembly members respond:


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