From Baltimore Out Loud: http://www.baltimoreoutloud.com/thinking-outloud/lgbt-equality/rational-t-hought/item/1830-wind-1-transfolk-0
by Sharon Brackett
Friday, 22 March 2013
In my last column I wrote about how “This Time it’s Different” with respect to getting gender-identity anti-discrimination passed in Annapolis. I was dead wrong. Mind you at the time I, and the primary bill sponsors, were under the impression that with a total of 23 sponsors, and 24 senate votes needed for passage, that things were looking very good. And they were before last week.
Last week the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee (JPR) met on the bill and voted it down in a stunning 5-6 defeat. The JPR vote was a bit of a surprise in that we had been told by many sources that deals had been made, the senators had come to solutions and “it would be worked out.” Apparently not so much as we lost. Which begs the question, “How did that happen?”
Let’s start with wind. Yes, we know there is plenty of hot air in Annapolis but this time I am talking about wind power, something I advocate. Last year the wind bill went down to defeat in the Senate Finance Committee for a second time. You see Sen. Anthony Muse has been a sticking point on that up until this year when the Senate President reassigned him to JPR, replacing Sen. Victor Ramirez. Wind power passed out of committee this year, not needing Ramirez’s vote after all, as it enjoyed a seven-vote lead (six votes would have served). Why does this matter you ask? Because Sen. Ramirez was a certain JPR “yes” vote on a Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Act. Sen. Muse? Not so much, and he was one of three Democratic no votes. Wind 1, Transfolk 0. A person of color, who voted against a civil rights act – hard to believe. But then again he voted against marriage equality too.
That leaves us with the other two Democrats who voted, along with all Republicans, to defeat the bill. The first would be Senator Norm Stone, who, if you will recall, voted in the 1960s to keep laws prohibiting interracial marriages on the books and also opposed marriage equality. I’m not quite sure why he is still in the Senate. Maybe in 2014 that will change.
But the primary “no”-vote prize winner is Democratic Senator Jim Brochin, whose District 42 is contained completely within Baltimore County where gender identity protections are already the law. Meaning passing this state law would have no change for the citizens of his district. And so you have to ask yourself, what is his problem? So I have dug around a bit.
Continue reading at: http://www.baltimoreoutloud.com/thinking-outloud/lgbt-equality/rational-t-hought/item/1830-wind-1-transfolk-0
