Maryland lawmakers urged to avoid NJ civil union ‘disaster’

[Laughing Mirror]

Steven Goldstein, chair of New Jersey's Garden State Equality, spoke last week before a MD state House committee, urging them to avoid the civil union disaster in New Jersey, calling civil unions a "band-aid on a cancer." Maryland lawmakers are considering the Religious Freedom & Civil Marriage Act, which would legalize same-sex marriage.

http://www.washblade.com/2008/3-7/news/localnews/12150.cfm

Del. Benjamin Barnes (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties) said lawmakers should not let a civil rights advancement be derailed by people who posit that marriage was created by God.

“If that’s your belief, that’s great,” he said. “But it can’t be denied that God didn’t give you the right to your partner’s pension benefits. God didn’t give you the right to visit your loved one in the hospital. Government did that through a civil institution called civil marriage. And that’s what this bill addresses — civil marriage. Not religious marriage. Civil marriage.”

...

Del. Heather Mizeur (D-Montgomery County) said the measure would remedy the problem she and her longtime female partner face — that they are “legal strangers to each other” — and rightly confer more than 400 state benefits.

“You don’t have to like us,” she said. “You don’t have to invite us to dinner with your family. You don’t even have to respect us and our relationship. But we do expect you to treat us equally under the law. There’s no place for discrimination in the Maryland that I love.”

[xchrom]

1. spot on -- under the law -- marriage is not a religious institution. nt

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. "God didn’t give you the right to your partner’s pension benefits"

Brilliant, simply brilliant.

:toast:

[MuseRider]

3. Saving this

and stealing the talking points. Wow, good ones all.

[BR_Parkway]

4. Why are they calling it "Religious Freedom" as part of the act -

seems like they keep making jabs at unhooking religion and marriage, but then they do things like that and tie it all back together.

[Laughing Mirror]

6. The act "makes clear that churches may continue to choose whom to marry"

That must be why they call it religious freedom.

[terrya]

5. Just pass a marriage bill.

Civil Unions have proven that they don't offer the same benefits as marriage.

Illinois has a civil unions bill in the state legislature. It can very well pass...but it will face the same damn problems that New Jersey and Connecticut and Vermont face...a civil union doesn't offer the same benefits as marriage. And Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to the contrary, you cannot offer the same or equal benefits in a civil union as those offered by marriage. Period.